Hellboy: The Crooked Man #1 (of 3)



This is the second Hellboy miniseries teaming of creator/writer Mike Mignola and artist Richard Corben, and it might wind up better than the first (2006's Hellboy: Makoma, or, A Tale Told by a Mummy in the New York City Explorers’ Club on August 16, 1993) - that's something, coming from me.

I think what really got to me about this issue is how it seems especially tuned to Corben's strengths; ragged, scraggly-looking people abound, branches jut above an environment coated in leaves, grass and dirt, and much of the horror comes from bodies twisting and cracking into odd, exaggerated forms. It's seemingly tailor-made for Corben's idiosyncratic approach to humans and nature, everything always a little off before fantastic sights push delicate reality right out of the way.

As a result, there's bits in this issue I just don't think Mignola could have done better himself - not a feeling I often get in the main Hellboy title, which has always been so close to its creator's personal style. Yet there's a stretch in here with a witch sitting atop a horse -- juxtaposing an alternatingly sleek and detailed pretty girl drawing, active and expressive (almost stretching and squashing, animation-style, with her movements and expressions), with this tactile, corpselike animal, model-like in its immobility -- that couldn't possibly have worked as well with Mignola, or really anyone but Corben.



The story, of course, is pure Hellboy-in-the-past. Our Hero finds himself up in the mountains of Virginia in 1958, investigating a strange case of possible witchery. He runs into a young man who's just returned home after 20 years, and knows a thing or two about the craft himself. They do run into trouble, but Hellboy mostly listens to Mignola's evocation of local folklore, as he often does in these things - he may hit something in a future issue, that I'll guess.

It's VERY GOOD, almost an ideal start to one of these things, brimming with enthusiasm for its specific setting from each creative area. But in the way that Hellboy is typically a visual spectacle first, it's Corben that registers hardest, adding a lived-in, fleshy quality -- and, frankly, a sexuality -- that pure Mignola mountains might have missed. I'm glad this one looks like it does.

Labels: Jog

Click Here to Read More...

Actually what I thought was the funniest thing about the 85 (!) responses to my last post here was that nobody had anything to say about the Art Spiegelman book!

BATMAN #678: So there's this concept, the "Magical Negro"--this essay by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu is a pretty solid overview of it. Essentially, it's a plot device in the form of a character of color (in a story that's mostly about white characters) who is at some kind of severe personal disadvantage, has a mystical connection to the earth or magic powers of some kind, helps the white protagonist accomplish a goal or achieve a new perspective, and then dies or disappears. It's one of the soggiest clichés in fiction, and this issue is basically a straight-up Legend of Bagger Vance-athon. (...As a quick Google just informed me that Jog pointed out several hours ago.)

The framing sequence, with its nervous riffing on the original Zur-En-Arrh story, is just enough to drag this up to a low Eh, and I loved the last issue enough that I'm still invested in R.I.P., but Jesus Q. Christ, what was Morrison thinking?

ASTONISHING X-MEN #25: The first non-Colleen-Coover-related X-book I've bought in a while--yes, I'm an apostate on the Whedon/Cassaday run, I'm afraid--so it actually is my jumping-on point, and a pretty Good one. This is the debut of the Warren Ellis/Simone Bianchi team, and you can see them sort of grinding their gears as they get used to working with each other. Ellis deals with it by resorting to his familiar tool-kit: The opening scene with Hisako and Hank (you can see it here) is effectively a Spider Jerusalem/Filthy Assistant dialogue ("And what did I tell you about the singing?" "You said you'd wait until I was asleep and then shave Japanese obscenities into my fur"), and later on, we get a lecture on bleeding-edge scientific theory. Curiously, Ellis isn't even pretending not to be writing for the trade: the story ends in a place that might as well be the middle of a scene. Meanwhile, Bianchi and Simone Peruzzi's hyper-rendered images and crazy-quilt layouts are pretty gorgeous, if sometimes so dark they're muddy; I particularly like the effect of Emma's white lipstick, and Bianchi's obviously having fun with showing the X-Men in street clothes.

The team isn't quite clicking yet, though--Hisako's facial expression in the panel above, for instance, is excessively photo-referenced, and doesn't fit the dialogue, either. But there's enough verve and drive here that I'm going to keep following it.

BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM! #1: I fear Mike Kunkel's new series, which sort of takes off where the Jeff Smith Monster Society mini left off, is going to get lost--it's part of the DC Kids line, which might as well feature a dead cockroach polybagged with every issue for all the traction it's got in the direct market. But it's definitely worth a flip through (which is what sold me on it): it's got not just a visual style but an overall look and feel that's not quite like anything else in American comics right now. It's packed, too, with 10 or 11 or 12 panels on every page and a ton of text, several large chunks of it in "Monster Society code." Plus: the first appearance of Black Adam that I've actually enjoyed in a really long time! If I were eight years old I'd be obsessed with this; as it is, I'm looking forward to my kid being old enough to dig it. Quite Good. Click Here to Read More...

This week is to "indy" comics as last week was to "mainstream" Marvel comics, sheesh!

2000 AD #1589
2000 AD #1590
A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #84 (A)
ALL NEW ATOM #25
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #564
AMERICAN DREAM #5 (OF 5)
AMERICAN SPLENDOR SEASON TWO #4 (OF 4)
ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #10
ARMY OF DARKNESS #10 LONG ROAD HOME
ASTONISHING X-MEN #25 MD
ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #7
AVENGERS INVADERS #3 (OF 12)
BATMAN #678 RIP
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #162
BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #1
BLUE BEETLE #28
BOYS #20
BRIT #7
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #16
CABLE #5 DWS
DARK TOWER END WORLD ALMANAC
DARK TOWER LONG ROAD HOME #5 (OF 5)
DC SPECIAL RAVEN #5 (OF 5)
DOCTOR WHO #5
DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS #8
DUMMYS GUIDE TO DANGER LOST AT SEA #3 (OF 4)
DYNAMO 5 #14
FABLES #74
FRESHMEN SUMMER VACATION SPECIAL
FX #5 (OF 6)
GHOST WHISPERER #4
GRIMM FAIRY TALES #28
GRIMM FAIRY TALES PIPER #3 (OF 4)
HELLBLAZER PRESENTS CHAS THE KNOWLEDGE #1 (OF 5)
HELLBOY THE CROOKED MAN #1 (OF 3)
HIGH ROLLERS #1 (OF 4)
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #3
HYPERKINETIC #1 (OF 4)
INDIA AUTHENTIC #14 SARASWATI
INFINITY INC #11
JOKERS ASYLUM THE JOKER #1
JONAH HEX #33
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #43
LOONEY TUNES #164
LORDS OF AVALON SOD #6 (OF 6)
LUCHA LIBRE #5
LUCKY VOL 2 #2
MACK BOLAN THE EXECUTIONER DEVILS TOOLS #4 (OF 5)
MANHUNTER #32
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #41
MYTH TOLD TALES #1 MYTH CONGENIALITY (RES)
NEW BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON ZERO #10
NEW DYNAMIX #4 (OF 5)
NIGHTWING #146
NORTHLANDERS #7
PATSY WALKER HELLCAT #1 (OF 5)
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #21
RANN THANAGAR HOLY WAR #3 (OF 8)
ROGUE ANGEL TELLER OF TALES #5
SAVAGE DRAGON #136
SAVAGE TALES #8
SECRET INVASION #1 DIRECTORS CUT
SECRET INVASION FRONT LINE #1 (OF 5) SI
SQUADRON SUPREME 2 #1
STAR TREK ASSIGNMENT EARTH #3
STAR TREK MIRROR IMAGES #1
STAR TREK NEW FRONTIER #4
STAR TREK YEAR FOUR ENTERPRISE EXPERIMENT #3
STATION #1 (OF 5) (RES)
STEPHEN COLBERTS TEK JANSEN #2 OF(5)
STORMING PARADISE #1 (OF 6)
SUPERGIRL #31
SWORD #9
TALES FROM WONDERLAND ALICE ONE-SHOT
TERRY MOORES ECHO #4
TOR #3 (OF 6)
TRAILER PARK OF TERROR COLOR SP #9 (RES)
TRINITY #5
VERONICA #189
VINYL UNDERGROUND #10
WALKING DEAD #50
WAR THAT TIME FORGOT #3 (OF 12)
ZOMBIE TALES #2 CVR A


Books / Mags / Stuff
AFTER THE CAPE II TP
CAPTAIN AMERICA TP OPERATION REBIRTH NEW PTG
CEMETERIANS TP VOL 1
COMPLETE K CHRONICLES TP
COUNTDOWN PRESENTS SEARCH FOR RAY PALMER TP
COUNTER X TP VOL 01 X-FORCE
DOCTOR WHO TP WORLD SHAPERS
ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS TP VOL 4
EXTRACT GN (A)
FAT CHUNK GN VOL 01 ROBOT
FRANK BELLAMYS ROBIN HOOD GN COMPLETE ADVENTURES
G FAN #84
HELLBLAZER FEAR MACHINE TP
HORROR BOOK TP VOL 01
IN ODD WE TRUST GN
INVADERS CLASSIC TP VOL 2
JUDGE DEATH YOUNG DEATH BOYHOOD OA SUPERFIEND GN
MAGIC TRIXIE GN VOL 01
MIGHTY AVENGERS PREM HC VOL 02 VENOM BOMB
NARUTO TP VOL 30
PATH OF THE ASSASSIN TP VOL 12 THREE FOOT BATTLE
SFX #171
SHOWCASE PRESENTS BATMAN TP VOL 03
SIZZLE #38 (A)
STRANGE & STRANGER WORLD OF STEVE DITKO HC
STRONTIUM DOG FINAL SOLUTION TP
SUPERMAN LAST SON HC
SWORD TP VOL 01
TEEN TITANS TP TITANS OF TOMORROW
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR TP VOL 10 GHOSTS
USAGI YOJIMBO TP VOL 22 TOMOES STORY
WATER BABY
WILDSTORM REVELATIONS TP


What looks good to YOU?

-B

Labels: Brian, Shipping Lists

Click Here to Read More...

It's Marvel's turn in the hot seat...

IMMORTAL IRON FIST #16 wraps up the Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction run (though Brubaker apparently checked out two months ago, because he wasn't credited for this issue or #15). As I've said before, IMMORTAL IRON FIST made a big impression on me, mainly because I'd never been interested in Danny Rand or the kung-fu-comics genre he represented until now. There was something new and intriguing about this particular interpretation, and I think a lot of it has to do with the way Brubaker and Fraction expanded the concept of Iron Fist into a trans-generational, trans-national identity. And something else began to emerge: not only was Danny Rand not the only Iron Fist, but pretty much every predecessor (with the possible exception of Orson Randall) did a better job of it than he did. The stories of Bei Bang-Wen and Wu Ao-Shi aren't just there to parallel Danny's life, they reposition the present-day Iron Fist as a neophyte, as someone who isn't the master expert of kung-fu mysticism in the Marvel Universe. The whole dynamic of the character - as I saw him, anyway - changed, because suddenly he's got so much to learn and there's actually a direction he needs to follow, and there's room for the character to grow and change.

Which he has, and this issue finally hits the pause button on the non-stop face-kicking so the dust can settle and the characters can come to the forefront. In the aftermath of the Ultimate Tournament of Fiery Bone-Crunching, Danny's re-evaluating his life and his relationships with Luke and Misty, and there's an appropriate sense of melancholy attached to that because this is both an ending and a new beginning, in that this issue also sets up the upcoming Duane Swierczynski run very clearly: the Living Weapons are running across New York, the question of the Eighth City is still up in the air, and there's a rather nasty prophecy uncovered at the very end that will probably play out in the coming months.

So... VERY GOOD, because the timing was impeccable: this series really needed a calm character piece in-between the crazy action sequences, and now that we've had it, we can move on. Will I be checking out IMMORTAL IRON FIST #17? Not sure... Swierczynski hasn't exactly knocked my socks off on CABLE. We'll see, I guess.

We are now leaving the realm of anything even remotely connected to The Good. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The last time I reviewed a Joss Whedon comic, I really tried to avoid discussing the lateness issue, despite the fact that it could (and probably did) affect the way you'd read the comic in question. I'm not going to cut RUNAWAYS #30 the same slack, because there's no doubt in my mind that the delays played a huge part in how crushingly disappointing this finale turned out to be.

See, here's the thing: Joss Whedon's run, in the final analysis, amounts to six issues of an absolutely mundane and unimaginative storyline, in which there are X-Men and Punisher and God-knows-what-else analogues in 1907 for no clear reason that I can see; New York is apparently blown up but gets all better in the future; a new kid joins the Runaways and good lord she's more annoying than the original Bendis version of Layla Miller. And at the end of the day it all goes back to normal.

I'm in "dude, what the hell?" mode here. I may have had problems with the way ASTONISHING X-MEN ended, but there was plenty of good to offset that. Here... well, honestly, there's that one crack Molly makes about Klara's "marital duties", and that's about it. I'm having issues with Whedon's characterization of the Runaways, with the vast number of disposable secondary characters, with the anticlimactic ending (so, wait, it was all about that Irish ditz after all? Boo-urns!). And, yes, in this case the delays really aren't justified, because I can't see anything here that would require a six-month story to last over a year. CRAP.

And finally, YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS #6 is a perfect example of how the number of chefs is irrelevant when none of them are willing to turn to the next page of the cookbook.

Here's the deal: I loved Heinberg's YOUNG AVENGERS. The high concept of legacy characters stealing other legacies was wonderfully subversive, because it twisted around the whole "Teen Titans" formula - Teen Hulk is really linked to Captain Marvel, Teen Thor to the Scarlet Witch, Teen Captain America to Isaiah Bradley rather than Steve Rogers. No one is who you expect them to be.

And then Heinberg did what most TV/movie writers do when they get into comics: he disappeared. And here we are, cooling our heels two years later, waiting for Godot to turn up.

Now, on the one hand, I can certainly understand Joe Quesada's reluctance to continue the story without Heinberg. He did a really good job with the characters, it was a great run, and Heinberg had some interesting ideas for the "second season". Plus, there are so few writers at Marvel who'd really be up to the task of handling this particular book. On the other hand, conventional knowledge says the longer these kids are in publishing limbo, the less popular any future appearances will be. So what we've been getting for the past two years is a series of meaningless filler that doubles as exposition infodumps just in case you've forgotten (or never knew) the basics.

And this is exactly what neutralizes any possible interest in YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS. Despite the impressive list of writers and artists involved, all we had here was a strict, formulaic pattern applied again and again with virtually no change: a Young Avenger meets someone connected to their origins, they have a long and meaningful chat, the end. Patriot talks to Bucky about race in America; Hulkling gets to meet his "father"; Wiccan and Speed look for Wanda in all the wrong places and find Master Pandemonium instead (don't ask because I don't know) and so on. It's all very dull, because by definition, these writers can't do anything that could potentially conflict with Heinberg's intentions (I get this mental image of Quesada doing the whole Sitcom Mom routine where he stares out a window for hours, and when Heinberg walks in he starts screaming "Where have you been?! Do you know what time it is?! I was worried sick!").

The problem with that is YOUNG AVENGERS only ran for twelve issues, and to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there's not a whole lot of there there. So YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS and the other place-holder miniseries are just spinning their wheels in a very, very small circle. Do you know what reading over a hundred pages of familiar exposition can do to a person?


So, yeah, I'm going to go with AWFUL because at least they're trying, whereas it looks like Whedon was totally sleeping on the job.

Labels: Diana

Click Here to Read More...

FINAL CRISIS #2: I don't think people are claiming in bad faith that the reason they're not enjoying this series is that they can't understand what's going on in it--it takes some careful attention to figure out how everything fits together--but I'm enjoying it so much that I keep having the impulse to say "okay, what exactly don't you understand? I'll try to explain it with reference only to stuff in this series itself!" As far as I can tell, all the information that's being withheld from the reader is being withheld in the interest of suspense. But it's also true that making readers fill in the blanks is Morrison's big narrative strategy here. The best bottom-dropping-out moment in this issue works by omission: when the scene shifts to Turpin about a third of the way through the issue, he's still on the trail of the missing kids he was looking for last issue, and somewhere in the middle of that sequence you're supposed to remember that--oh, crap--he already found them, so something is desperately wrong here. (The final-page reveal would've been a lot more effective if it hadn't been spoiled two months ago.)

I think it's interesting that Dan DiDio was asking audience members at Wizard World what this series was about, and got a bunch of different answers; I'm guessing that the elevator-pitch premise of Final Crisis is going to be part of what's eventually revealed, so in the meantime Morrison is giving us a lot of pyrotechnics to keep it entertaining. And it works: the Big Science Action/Super Young Team/Sonny Sumo sequence at the beginning is a great set-piece and sets up a whole lot of intriguing characters in a bare minimum of space. This is really Excellent stuff, beautifully constructed and drawn, and that Flash cover is just fantastic.

NEW AVENGERS #42/MIGHTY AVENGERS #15: Clever to see these released the same day, because they're two variations on the same formula (they even have a nearly identical "transformation" scene in the middle): the story of how a couple of the Avengers were replaced by Skrulls, surrounded by redrawn sequences from earlier in their respective series that we can now read differently knowing that those characters are Skrulls. John Romita Jr. is credited with "breakdowns" rather than pencils on Mighty Avengers, and it shows--there's nowhere near the detail and expressiveness here that there was in World War Hulk or Kick-Ass, and Klaus Janson and Tom Palmer seem to be working from loose pencils without adding much to them--there's not a lot of definition to the faces and figures, and not a lot of backgrounds. It's Good, if sort of scanty--it reads like a scene that's been fleshed out to a full issue.

The Jim Cheung/John Dell artwork on Mighty Avengers is a lot more effective, in part because it's a lot slicker, and slickness goes well with the "clip show" arrangement of the story. At times, Cheung is like a much less obviously photo-reference-dependent Greg Land, drawing the eye in with lots of soft curves that Justin Ponsor's color-modeling accentuates, but doing very simple panel-to-panel transitions--lots of slow zoom-ins, and a slow pan around the room for a lengthy talking heads scene (a much more straightforward version of the technique Jones uses for the Sonny Sumo sequence in Final Crisis). Still, I'm getting pretty tired of the trick (which we see in the Jessica Drew/Madame Hydra scene here) of repeating a single image to indicate that a conversation has a consistent emotional tenor. Cheung's talented enough at drawing facial expressions that he shouldn't have to resort to cut-and-paste. I'm also pretty confused by what's going on in the final scene--so Jessica's present at Genosha as House of M begins? can someone explain what's going on, please?--and as good a line as Maria Hill's "my spider-sense is tingling about you" is, it's not a concept she'd have, is it? And I'd like to point out that, as far as I know, Columbia University has no science buildings with 12-foot picture windows featuring a majestic view of the midtown Manhattan skyline. Quite Good, anyway.

MADAME XANADU #1: I picked this up because I usually like Matt Wagner's comics and the cover was pretty, but man is this disappointing--an unbroken string of lifeless Olde Tymes fantasy clichés with incredibly annoying mock-high diction ("He ignores my wardings as if crossing a rain puddle. And transmorphs cold steel into living flesh... with but a wave of his hand"). I kept expecting a Thunderskull-style caption to read "Erstwhile..." Amy Reeder Hadley's artwork is smooth and likeable, but I agree with Diana: there's nothing to hold onto here. Awful.

MCSWEENEY'S #27: This is not a comic book, and it came out a few weeks ago with barely any notice in the comics blogosphere. This issue of the different-format-every-time magazine is a slipcased $24 set of three books: a collection of short stories (including one by Stephen King), a book of image + text + humor pieces that are mostly by artists with some connection to the fine-art world (including a few Joe Brainard Nancy images, Raymond Pettibon, Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, etc.), and the volume that will probably be of greatest interest to comics types: Autophobia, an 80-page sketchbook by Art Spiegelman. A note explains that it's a reproduction of most of a sketchbook he kept between March and May of last year to get rid of a fear of drawing he'd developed; "since cartoonists are supposed to work for publication," he concludes, "I figured I would complete my private gesture by shaming myself in public."

What's peculiar about this sketchbook is that most of its drawings are, in one way or another, about Spiegelman's anxiety about comics, drawing, and public recognition: the first one is called "Finished Art," and it's a picture of anthropomorphized comics pages that are lying on the ground, with "all their spontaneity beaten out of them." Then there are children "lost, deep in the forest of marks," some self-loathing self-portraits, a couple of pages in tribute to Dick Briefer's Frankenstein comics, an inspired little doodle called "On the Corner of Steinberg and Death," and so on. Spiegelman's such a natural cartoonist it's sort of painful to see him force himself to draw, working past the expectations of an audience that he's placed on himself, maybe more than anyone else has placed them on him; if cartoonists are "supposed to work for publication," which I don't know about, then it would follow that all artists are supposed to work for some kind of public attention. But that doesn't mean they don't also get to make art for themselves. Stumbling across this sketchbook would be a pleasure, even if--especially if, actually--you didn't know who Spiegelman was. Seeing it presented with this kind of deluxe frame and ritualized self-abasement actually does make it a little embarrassing. So I think that averages out to an Okay. Click Here to Read More...

More evidence that the '90s were made of LIES: summertime has arrived, and contrary to the Fresh Prince's promises, there is no groove, nobody looks good in 125% humidity, and if you're dumb enough to dance in the open while the sun's up, you deserve the inevitable dehydration and/or dissolution into a puddle of skin-colored goo.

As if that weren't enough, June was a seriously weird month for comics - I read nothing but 2000AD for three weeks (new Nikolai Dante story), and suddenly almost every single series I'm following has an issue out on the 25th. To which I say:




CROSSING MIDNIGHT #19 marks the unfortunate end of the latest ongoing series by Mike Carey and Jim Fern. I liked this one - Vertigo's done a lot with British and American mythologies, and it was a nice change of pace to apply that same exploratory approach and lovely artwork to the Japanese mythscape. Of course, the direct market being what it is, there was no way this series could've lasted more than two years; that said, it's still disappointing that CROSSING MIDNIGHT ends on such an unsatisfactory note. It's pretty much the same pattern most premature cancellations follow: we get a compressed finale that skips through the last act, sacrificing any emotional resonance or genuinely surprising plot twists for a quick, straightforward wrap-up. Only in this case, there is no wrap-up because we get a last-page cliffhanger, and that's the sort of thing that really gets on my nerves - the axe dropped on this series months ago, and the least Carey could've done was deliver a real conclusion to the story. Writers have a responsibility to provide closure for those readers who stuck around to the very end; it doesn't even have to be good closure (see: HARD TIME). But if I'd known CROSSING MIDNIGHT would fizzle out with an OKAY non-ending, I wouldn't have kept buying it for nineteen months.

Sticking with Vertigo, Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley kick off a new ongoing with MADAME XANADU #1. I wasn't quite sure what to expect here: Wagner's done some amazing work (recent Hunter Rose stories aside), and I didn't know anything about the titular character, so it was worth checking out. And... well, I'm underwhelmed. Something about this issue just doesn't work: the dialogue's stilted even by Arthurian standards ("Grant me this boon, oh generous elm! Thanks be for your sacrifice, leafy grandfather. May the winds spread your seeds far and wide") and there's a guest appearance by one of the most irritating characters in the DCU, the Phantom Stranger, whose entire purpose in any story is to hang around and drop cryptic comments before disappearing. I came away feeling like I'd seen all this before, from the druidic tree-hugging to Merlin doing his Mrs. Robinson thing with Nimue, and while I'm aware that it's only a prelude and that the main story moves out of the Arthurian setting, I honestly couldn't find anything here to make me continue reading. EH and better luck next time, I suppose.

Labels: Diana

Click Here to Read More...

We met at where the cable cars turn around on California at Market, Hibbs and Paul and Anina, Graeme and myself. As it turned out, we ended up talking and leaning against the small monument built there for Robert Frost, the poet who so famously wrote about roads not taken and miles to go before you sleep, and etc., etc. An hour earlier, I'd sat by myself behind the ferry building, staring at the Bay Bridge, and tried very hard to think about Rory Root being dead at fifty.



I've lived long enough to know I don't process death in anything like an efficient way: I've looked down at the dead bodies of close friends and death is still an abstraction to me, something I understand intermittently. It's like two thrashing sides of a severed power line that only occasionally touch and connect and when they do, I realize this thing that has haunted me through my life--the idea I shall end--is something that has happened to people I know and I'll never see them again. But mostly, the idea is too large for my simplistic worldview, and while I'm not happy with that, the experience of losing people close to me has forced me to accept it. I grieve when those wires connect and the realization comes through, and when they don't connect I think of that person just as someone I haven't seen in a while, out there about in the world, talking, laughing.

It seemed important, though, on that beautiful summer day to look at the Bay Bridge and think of Rory Root being dead, to try and measure and see if it was a weight against which I could judge the fairness and unfairness of things in the world. It seemed unfair, for example, that Rory could be dead on such an impossibly lovely day--a day where San Francisco weather had called in sick, and Texas weather had shown up to fill in, the clouds vertiginously high and the breeze as warm on one's neck as a lover's breath. It seemed outrageous to the point of blasphemy that Rory would not see this day. And because the wires weren't connecting, I thought about the outrageousness of all the people who had died who would never see a San Francisco day like this, and how I, out of some odd parsing of the lots, could, and could also sit on a bench and think about exactly that because for some reason I was still alive.

At the cable car turnaround, we went underground and caught BART over to Berkeley. Although the platform where we waited was cool and breezy, BART itself felt like someone stoked a fire under us with the intention of slow-roasting alive everyone inside. We sweated and swayed as the train wavered on the tracks like a heat mirage, and Graeme and Brian talked about what might happen with Dan Didio and DC.

As we came out into the pungent Berkeley afternoon, Graeme said to me, "You know, I never make it over to Berkeley as much as I should. And when I do, I can never decide if Berkeley is great or skeevy. Or both." The man with four teeth in his head and the piss-yellow beard went on to underscore Graeme's point by insisting we give him money. And the more I thought about what Graeme had said, the more I realized how much that point resonated with me. I didn't make it over to Berkeley as much I meant to, either, and it wasn't just the convenience of living in San Francisco, that roguishly charming impersonator of a world-class city. Something about Berkeley set me on edge, but I couldn't say what it was. So I thought about it as we moved up to the entrance of Comic Relief, where people stood out on the walk, talking and drinking and smoking. The memorial had begun at 5, the testimonial for Rory's at 6, and we had shown up a little after 7, to see all these people on the sidewalk, making pleasant small talk and shaking hands and hugging one another. Hibbs stepped up to immediate greetings. Graeme and I stood to the side of the doors, looked at everyone and then went in to hear people talk about Rory.

The store had trapped the heat of the day, as well as all the people inside, and it felt even hotter than the BART ride over. A woman wearing Rory attire (black hat, black t-shirt) with Scandinavian features stood behind the back issue counter and talked--not quite loudly enough--about Rory and his love of Swedish meatballs. I assumed at the time but never confirmed that it was Rory's sister, and this is something you should keep in mind about my recounting of this night: my mind still refuses to confirm or deny the identities I assigned to each person. I can't say for certain it was Bob Wayne who talked travel benefits with Anina Bennett, or Shaenon Garrity, heart-stoppingly elegant in a gorgeous green dress, who walked quickly out of Comic Relief with tears in her eyes. But my mind continues to tell me it must've been, there was no one else it could be. Mortality had rendered everyone at Rory's memorial important and mysterious and fragile and powerful, and I guess some part of me refuses to negate any part of that with something so trivial as knowledge. The very obvious (but no less true for that) analogy would be picking up a superhero comic for the first time, and trying to infer how all the colorful characters related by what they said to one another, how they reacted, and even with the occasional assistance of a blatant bit of introduction. Even people I knew seemed somehow strange and new, and so I can make no true claims for people's identity that night, not even my own: I wandered about, watchful and sweaty and silent, not quite sure I recognized myself.

While the people outdoors laughed and smoked, the people with the too-quiet voices continued to stand and speak about Rory (underneath a poster of The Inifinity Man, Jack Kirby's strangely impassive hero, the one who resembles an Aztec Warrior crossed with a '56 Chrysler) and all the things Rory loved: Swedish meatballs, military histories, his customers, comic books, bad puns, talking. "He loved, well, he loved just about everyone," one speaker said, and the way she said "everyone" caused a surprisingly fresh wound of anguish in my heart.

For a moment, those interior power lines snapped together before slicing apart and putting me outside myself again, making me again someone sweaty and uneasy and out of place. And yet I was filled for whatever reason with the hubris that if I got up and spoke, I could say what none of the speakers had yet to say. I could say something that could put everything in context, that could be notable for its candor but without cruelty, forthright and yet gentle.

Because this is the other thing I've learned about myself in seeing friends and family and casual acquaintances die over the years: I've come less and less to care about the love. It is well and fine, of course, and it is in fact very, very important for us to talk about how we love the person who is gone and how that person loved us. But for the most part, talking only about love and laughter and bravery and success renders the person who has passed as flat as a pop song. The older I get, what makes people alive for me is everything we usually don't talk about at a memorial--a person's failures, the prickly edges of their angers and resentments, the resonant tones of their shortcomings and pains. And this is what kept me from standing up and saying anything at Rory's service and what makes me feel uncomfortable and creepy as I sit here typing this, because one of the things that makes Rory Root most alive to me in my mind--both as he lived and now that he's dead--can be summed up in this question: why did someone so kind and loving and prominent in his field seem so lonely and in such terrible health?

Later, outside in the night, watching Joe Field hold his two daughters close and smile and nod, I saw a woman march determinedly through the crowd, her eyes on the ground in front of her. She was about Rory's age--fifty--and she clutched to her chest two hardcover books so throroughly marked with blue post-it notes they seemed feathered. Watching her pass, I finally figured out the discomfort I felt in Berkeley.

If you live in San Francisco, you deal with a lot of people who went to U.C. Berkeley. Frequently, they are people who seem to command a certain amount of money and prestige and seem entirely comfortable with it. And even if they don't take that path, they have both a knowledge and a network--whether they want it or not--that seems to keep them from, say, attending a political fundraiser without bumping into someone with whom they went to school.

But Berkeley is like a low-grade singularity--objects of sufficient speed can hurtle right by with only the most minor change in trajectory, but some objects get caught and swept in, and the last you see of them is right at the point of an event horizon from which they'll never return. These are the people who stick in your mind when you go to Berkeley, people who went there and never escaped, who found some passion that overwhelmed them, outweighed their trajectory. You see them dressed in second-hand clothes, clutching a rare edition of Goethe's letters in which they've made notes in three languages. You spot them sitting at cafes, one leg jiggling like a telegram key while they pick out their change with unwashed hands, calculating the cost of a refill. Their teeth are a mess. They have an impressively substantial mole or perhaps a single long white hair that juts from their eyebrows and sways in the corner of their vision.

I have no reason to fear these people. I don't even have any reason to pity them--who am I to say that their life, empty but for a dizzily powerful passion, is worse than mine? Isn't it just as likely that whatever wild passions and commitments they carry make their lives better, richer? But, with a childish superstition, I fear staying too long in Berkeley because there's not nearly enough distance between myself and those men and women, their tiny apartments stacked with sour-smelling books, as I would like. I fear staying in Berkeley because of the fear that I am them already, and just haven't realized it yet.

And so it is for me with Rory Root, a man I could not have loved so much if I did not in some way fear, a man who I could not have respected so much if at some level he did not make me ashamed. Because Rory was in such poor health the entire time I knew him it never failed to tap a tuning fork of dread in my heart. Rory was in such poor health that one of the things that shocked me about his passing was that I was shocked, and this I think is one of the real reasons why, unlike in so many other memorials and testimonies about the deceased, talking about all the many ways Rory loved and was loved by people is not only necessary but vital: Rory's love and knowledge and compassion and generosity transcended every way in which his poor health terrified me. To say talking with Rory moved me from fear to compassion is both cheesy and, fortunately, untrue: the generosity with which Rory spoke, and the gentle, cheerful knowingness with which Rory spoke, moved me from fear to something like religious awe. It can take the power of being born to them to make our love for our parents conquer the frustrations we might have with them in later life, or transcend the horror of the agony with which their old age might bring. For me, all it took with Rory was about ninety seconds of conversation. It is a tremendously old cliche (and annoyingly new-agey) but I can think of no other way to say it: Rory Root was a lifeforce, someone who conveyed to me so much of what it meant to be alive, almost entirely (but not entirely) for the better. My memories of him seem more vivid to me than they do of other people, as if they were shot with a larger lens on better film. And the love he brought to his life was so all-encompassing, I knew whether I stood outside the shop ignoring the testimonials, or pilfering a few too many oreo cookies for the ride home, or idly straightening the comics on the new comics rack--it was all too easy to imagine him encouraging me to do so.

It's funny. That night I asked Charles Brownstein if he had given a testimonial and he shook his head. "Let's face it, those things are almost always either therapy for the speaker or just self-aggrandizement," he said, to which I agreed emphatically and with relief. But having reread what I have written until now, I cannot say I've done any better and may have done far worse. And I'll be honest: I started with the idea of linking the singularity of Berkeley to the singularity which is the comic field, in the hopes of finding some clear link between Rory's loneliness and poor health and some facet of the comics field I figured I would nail down in the course of writing. (The hard-knock life of retailers who've been in the field since near the beginning, maybe.) But I've reached the end here, and not only do I still not know what it is, I doubt I could fairly make that conclusion. It is very easy and satisfying to take the single context in which one knows a person and suggest that context is the reason for everything about what they do and will do and have done. It is also, I suspect, usually wrong.

Robert Frost wrote a sonnet entitled "On A Bird Singing In Its Sleep," in which the poet meditates on a bird that sings in the night. One interpretation of the poem is that Frost at first draws a comparison between a bird and its song (and its seeming frailty) and human beings and the poetry we create (and our frailty), but by the end of the poem he rejects that comparison ("It could not have come down to us so far/ Through the interstices of things ajar/ On the long bead chain of repeated birth/ To be a bird while we are men on earth / If singing out sleep and dream that way/ Had made it much more easily a prey.")

And so I reject my initial half-hearted thesis, easy and satisfying though it might have been to make it. At one point during the night, Brian looked the length of Comic Relief to the far end where Todd Martinez, the store manager who Rory had made owner, rang up customers. And Brian said, "I really want to talk to Todd about his plans for running this place. I think the best way we can honor Rory is to make sure Comic Relief always stays open." Although he only said it around Charles Brownstein and myself, I have no doubt nearly every retailer who'd made an appearance that night, having traveled from many distant cities--Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, Missoula, among others--would've agreed with him.

And in fact, right before I left at around eleven or so, I saw Hibbs talking to Todd in the back by the coolers, flanked by Charles Brownstein and Larry Marder. Todd sat, exhausted, while Brian knelt next to him, and Charles and Larry flanked Todd's opposite side, their heads bowed. I wasn't fooled by the coolers, the sweat stains, the crenulated pans of aluminum and their cooling tides of barbecued beef: the positioning of the people was precisely that of a classical painting where the elders of a court advise a boyish new king on the kingdom he must run. The old king had passed, and now the new king held sway. And I saw in the postures of these men an imperative, a tradition, in which one can (I hope) find a solace that no bird singing in the night could ever begin to understand. Perhaps these traditions--these communities--can help all of us, by means large and small, as we make our way toward the dark destinations our hearts hold forth as inevitable.

Labels: Brian, Jeff, Rory Root

Click Here to Read More...

The Programme #12 (of 12)



Hmm. Well that sort of ended.

Really, the last issue of this Wildstorm series is fairly appropriate, given the series' premise: USSR superheroes wake up in our modern world of seemingly greater nuance of conflict, prompting the US to try and get its own Cold War superfolk back in order. The clash of the superpowers is back, and it quickly gets to scraping at tensions and contradictions -- racial, martial, political -- that always existed in that time, and yet endure today.

There's plenty of endurance at the end of the story. A few characters die and a few things get smashed, but nothing much is accomplished beyond radicalizing the most powerful players a few steps more, and sending them back into the age of gray threats. History repeats itself, and very much informs the present, but it's unknown whether anyone learns from history. "Maybe next time," shrugs the denouement.

It's logical enough material for writer Peter Milligan - here, his career-spanning theme of identity is blown up extra-wide to cover national identity, and it's not a happy picture. His American superheroes find themselves either transformed into immovable ideologues or dead for their hesitation, while the Communist contingent sort of frowns and melts into one another - tough being the avatar for your nation. It's garish and angry, more than happy to link uses of Nazi-developed technology to a perceived inclination toward fascism, and allows precious little hope for substantive personal improvement under the lumbering of government conflict narratives. No war heroes in this one, that's for sure.



But there's nothing all that striking or revealing about the conflict either. Milligan's character work has tended toward the shrill for much of the series, with characters choking statements of purpose in each other's directions and flashing back to predictable intrigues - only Milligan's Senator Joe emerges as compellingly conflicted, among national uprisings that offer little more than additional opportunity for blunt thematic chit-chat. Also: chases and hitting.

This particular issue is heavy on the hitting, all hazy and smoldering in sickly hues. Artist C.P. Smith -- with Jonny Rench on colors for issues #1-5 -- has seemed determined to make this the oddest looking superhero thing DC has released in a while, as visually loud as Milligan's script can be nasty, and there's been some striking, weird power at work (man, was the end of issue #10 a homage to Shatter?!).

Yet it also effectively supercharges Milligan's dialogue-heavy sequences and character moments, exacerbating their screechy tone. And all the lovingly blocky textures at hand can't entirely cover for the problems Smith shares with a number of artists who work with heavy realist character drawings: lots of stiff poses and distractingly 'acted' facial expressions, which don't help the flow of an action-heavy issue at all.

In that way, there's been a conflict between the story and art too - they sort of match, but also bring out the worst in one another, much like Milligan seems to say America's most enduring conflicts bring out the worst in it. If only there'd been a better way to get the message across. EH; issue and series, now and forever.

Labels: Jog

Click Here to Read More...

So, I had a dream the other night where I met Brian Michael Bendis. It was one of those traditional disorientating dreams you know something is wrong, but can't quite put your finger on it... In this case, I was at some sub-San Diego con thing, and someone had introduced me to Bendis, and I was trying to think of something nice to say to him. The best my dream-self could come up with was "Secret Invasion doesn't suck so much if you read all three issues at the same time..."

Yeah, I know; smooth. I don't think he noticed, though, because he seemed happy enough as he showed me how to operate his new home theater set-up with his supercharged remote control.

But that's enough about me. FINAL CRISIS #2, anyone?



Here's the thing: The second issue of DC's Big Summer Event book is Very Good, taken on its own terms. If you ignore Countdown to Final Crisis and all of the lead-ins and other books (except maybe Grant's own Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle series) and forget that it's supposed to be this big "event" book, it works really well - It's definitely still in "slow build" mode, but it works nonetheless; seeing Dan Turpin slowly realize that something is wrong with him (and getting odd hints that what's wrong is that he's slowly turning into Darkseid, oddly enough - but then, we know from the first issue that bodies wear out quickly for the New Gods), watching the DC Universe get more corrupted... It feels creepier and more effective because it is happening relatively slowly, as opposed to the big "And then the Skrulls invaded New York! So much for that 'secret' invasion!" take of Marvel's summer smash. Not that nothing's happening here, of course; if anything, Morrison's guilty of too much happening, too much taking place between the pages or without proper explanation just yet (I would've liked to have seen more of what happened to John Stewart, for example - Why wasn't he killed? Surely leaving him alive means that his attacker will be identified?).

That compression, the choppy style of storytelling that needs the reader to both be patient and also to pay attention, also feels like the downfall of the book, in a strange way. Like I said, taken as a book in and of itself, it's great. But as "The Summer Event" for DC Comics, it doesn't deliver, yet; it's too slow, too fragmented, maybe too smart to do what we've come to expect from these big summer flagpole series. It's not just that it doesn't do explosions, like I said when talking about #1, it doesn't really do anything that we think a book like this should do. Even the by-now-traditional death of a superhero is treated in a more quiet, subdued and serious way than usual - No tearful declarations of revenge or a stranger picking up the mantle here, just three panels of a funeral and then a sober investigation. Don't get me wrong; it's a better read because of that, I think... It's just that it's something that feels more like something that a smaller audience would appreciate, rather than the simplicity and lowest-common-denominator appeal of a Secret Invasion or Crisis On Infinite Earths. In a way, it's brave of DC to have give such promotion and status to what is, essentially, Grant Morrison's sequel to Seven Soldiers (which the opening of this issue, with the introduction of a whole new subculture of superheroes, really felt like), but in another way, it's almost setting themselves up for disappointment.

Labels: Graeme

Click Here to Read More...

I haven't seen anyone else write about it (or, at least Tom 'n' Ace 'n' Dirk ain't linked to anything yet), so let me take a stab at saying something about the memorial for Rory Root at Comic Relief this past Saturday night.

I traveled to the Memorial with Jeff and Graeme, as well as Anina Bennett and Paul Guinan. We arrived right around 7 PM, while the event itself was scheduled to start at 5. I was told that the actual Stand-Up-And-Say-Something portion of it started about 6 (and it lasted until 10:30 or 11 or so, wow!)

When we showed up, the street in front of CR was packed, with probably 40-50 people milling about talking, reminiscing on the sidewalk. Immediately I recognized tons of people who came in from out of town -- oh, there's Diana Schutz, there's Larry Marder, there's Bob Wayne, it went on like that pretty much all night, every time I turned I saw someone in comics who'd flown in from out of town for this. To a certain extent, it might have been almost good that it happened the same weekend as Heroes Con, because otherwise maybe it would have shut down traffic, y'know?

Then there were all of the retailers. Wow, there were a lot of folks flying out-of-state for this -- Jim Hanley and Steve Gursky, Matt Lehman, Brad Bankston, Mike Malve, Hell Kelly Down came down all the way from Alberta - and I'm missing a couple of people there. Then there were at least 25, maybe 30 retailers from inside California. Honestly if you wanted to pull a string of comic book store heists up and down the left coast, last Saturday would have been the day to do it -- all of the owners were out of town!

I'm awful at eyeballing numbers in a crowd, and it's even harder in CR because the store is so ginormous it throws off my sense of scale, but I'm guessing that at certain points there were likely upwards of 125 people inside the store at one time. It was packed.

It was also kind of like walking into an oven. Thursday and Friday had been EVIL hot days in the Bay Area (at least by Bay Area standards), but Saturday had started to cool off. So, OUTside the store it was a wonderfully pleasant summer evening, with a nice breeze and all, but, wham 20 degrees hotter once you get two steps in, from the heat of the crowd, and lack of any real ventilation.

I heard a lot of great Rory stories, both delivered to the crowd, as well as shared in small groups, and we talked a lot about comics more generally, and saw people we might not have seen in a long time, and had lots of food and beer and just generally a good ass time. Which is pretty much what Rory would have loved.

I'm young enough that this kind of thing is really rare for me (and thank god for that), and I never really know what the etiquette of things should be. Everyone asks "how are you doing?" and I am sorta not sure if that's in the "What's up?" sense or the "How hard is the loss hitting you?" It is maybe even weirder now, because "enough" time has passed that most of his friends are just now starting to "get over it". I open with "my condolences" to a handful of people -- Rory's family, Todd, ex-Partner Mike, because I feel like they really deserve more than the "how are you doing?" but I still feel kind of awkward and strange with what to say and how to say it. Or how to respond, sometimes. Death is weird.

Heh, so I'm standing outside (AND NOT SMOKING A CIGARETTE, mind, so that's good)(though I got offered many from people who know me as a smoker, which is also nice, if no longer practical), and some girl walks by and asks "Wow, what's going on here?" and I tell her that it's a memorial for the owner of the store, and that he was a great man, and that there are people from all over the country here to pay their respects, and she smiles, and says quite innocently, "Wow! Sounds cool!" She didn't MEAN any harm, nor did I take any, but isn't that like exactly the wrong thing to say?

Berkeley, y'know?

I ended up leaving just before midnight (If I don't get on BART by then, I turn into a pumpkin... though I really timed my train right, I waited for less than 5 minutes, so was back in The City waiting for my Muni bus in under a half-hour... and that's WITH the transfer at McArthur), and I think I was among the last people who wasn't a CR employee, or past CR employee.

I left it to them, as it should be. (though I sorta pity whoever opened Sunday, heh)

I'll miss the big guy, and I didn't want to say goodbye, but this was an alright way to do so, if we have to.

Rory would have adored the party and all of the people and that they were all happy; but he would have been embarrassed as heck that they were actually SAYING all of the wonderful things they did.

-B

Labels: Brian, Rory Root

Click Here to Read More...

Big week!

76 #4 (OF 8)
A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #83 (A)
ANGEL REVELATIONS #2 (OF 5)
ARCHIE #586
ARCHIE DIGEST #245
AVENGERS FAIRY TALES #3 (OF 4)
AVENGERS INITIATIVE #14 SI
BART SIMPSON COMICS #42
BATMAN GOTHAM AFTER MIDNITE #2 (OF 12)
BEYOND WONDERLAND #0 (OF 6)
BLACK PANTHER #37
BPRD ECTOPLASMIC MAN ONE SHOT
CALIBER #3 (OF 5)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #39
CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #46
CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #0
CROSSING MIDNIGHT #19
DAREDEVIL #108
DARKNESS #4 KEOWN CVR A
DC UNIVERSE SPECIAL REIGN IN HELL 80 PAGE GIANT
FANTASTIC FOUR #558
FEAR AGENT #22 1 AGAINST 1 (PT 1 OF 6)
FINAL CRISIS #2 (OF 7)
FIRE & BRIMSTONE #1 (OF 3)
GREEN LANTERN #32
HERCULES #3 (OF 5)
HULK #4
HUNTRESS YEAR ONE #4 (OF 6)
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #16
JACK OF FABLES #23
JIM BUTCHERS DRESDEN FILES #3 (OF 4) WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
JSA CLASSIFIED #39
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #140
MADAME XANADU #1
MADAME XANADU #1 VAR ED
MAN WITH NO NAME #2
MARVEL 1985 #2 (OF 6)
MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #37
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #10
MARVEL ILLUSTRATED MOBY DICK #5 (OF 6)
MIGHTY AVENGERS #15 SI
MS MARVEL #28 SI
MYTHOS CAPTAIN AMERICA (RES)
NEOZOIC #5
NEW AVENGERS #42 SI
NEW WARRIORS #13
NO HERO #0 (OF 7)
NUMBER OF THE BEAST #6 (OF 8)
OZ WONDERLAND CHRONICLES ORBIK CVR B #3 (OF 4)
PHANTOM #24 CHECKMATE PART 4 (OF 5)
PIGEONS FROM HELL #3 (OF 4)
POWER PACK DAY ONE #4 (OF 4)
PROGRAMME #12 (OF 12)
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS #4 (OF 7)
PROOF #9
RUNAWAYS #30
SECRET HISTORY THE AUTHORITY HAWKSMOOR #4 (OF 6)
SECRET INVASION RUNAWAYS YOUNG AVENGERS #1 (OF 3) SI
SHE-HULK 2 #30
SONIC X #34
STAR WARS DARK TIMES #12 VECTOR PART 6
STEPHEN COLBERTS TEK JANSEN #1 (OF 5) NEW PTG
STRANDED #5
SUPERMAN #677
SUPERMAN #677 VAR ED
SUPERNATURAL RISING SON #3 (OF 6)
TEEN TITANS #60
THOR AGES OF THUNDER REIGN OF BLOOD
THUNDERBOLTS #121
TRINITY #4
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #123
ULTIMATES 3 #4 (OF 5)
UNCANNY X-MEN #499 DWS
WASTELAND #18
WHAT IF FANTASTIC FOUR TRIBUTE TO MIKE WIERINGO
WOLVERINE FIRST CLASS #4
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #26
WORLDS OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS #2 WALPOLE CVR B
X-MEN FIRST CLASS VOL 2 #13
X-MEN LEGACY #213 DWS
YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS #6 (OF 6)

Books / Mags / Stuff
ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER HC VOL 01
ANDRU AND ESPOSITOS GET LOST TP (RES)
ARCHIE AMERICANA SER TP VOL 08 BEST OF 60S BOOK 2
BARBARIAN CHICKS & DEMONS TP VOL 01 (A)
BATMAN JEKYLL AND HYDE TP
BLUESMAN HC
CHRONICLES OF CONAN TP VOL 15 CORRIDOR OF MULLAH KAJAR
DEMO TP
DEVI TP VOL 04
DISCWORLD GN VOL 01 COLOUR OF MAGIC & LIGHT FANTASTIC
EX MACHINA DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 01
FORGOTTEN HC (RES)
GANTZ TP VOL 01
GREEN LANTERN TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS HC
HEAVY METAL SUMMER 2008
HOUSE OF M TP AVENGERS
INDIANA JONES ADVENTURES TP VOL 01
JACK OF FABLES TP VOL 03 THE BAD PRINCE
JUXTAPOZ VOL 15 #7 JUL 2008
LOADED BIBLE TP VOL 01
ORDINARY VICTORIES WHAT IS PRECIOUS GN
PREVIEWS VOL XVIII #7 (NET)
SILENT LEAVES THE LAST BONDSMAN GN VOL 01
SUPERMAN CAMELOT FALLS TP VOL 01
TANGENT COMICS TP VOL 03
TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE TP VOL 06
TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #166
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 08 MADE TO SUFFER
WIZARD MAGAZINE #202 MCNIVEN WOLVERINE CVR
WRITE NOW #18


What looks good to you?

-B

Labels: Brian, Shipping Lists

Click Here to Read More...

"I'll tell you the ultimate secret of magic. Any cunt could do it."



So said John Constantine to Alan Moore on one particular occasion. Sure, Constantine was (and remains) a fictional character, and Moore was (and, desire of attribution aside, remains) his mortal co-creator, but, you know, Glycon the snake puppet wasn't a real god either, and Moore's worship continues unabated. I suppose when all ideas are real, to some extent, it takes only a cloud of smoke duly puffed across the porch of corporeality for the idea of a working-class magician to personally impart his authentic proletarian message.

But I'm here to go on about stories, imaginary things all - and don't sweat it DC, we didn't need to be told as much in every edition anyway.

My favorite John Constantine story -- of the less than one quarter I've read, mind you -- is currently collected in the trade paperback pictured above, the latecoming second volume of the (presumably) complete Hellblazer works of Jamie Delano, the title's first writer. The latecoming third volume, Hellblazer: The Fear Machine, is due next month.

Yeah, Hellblazer Annual #1, from 1989; tops in my book. Really fine Bryan Talbot art (ha, I just repeated myself), and actually rather bold in structure. The 'main' story is divided into two parts, the first set in 1982, and the second many hundreds of years prior (with a coda set again in '82, I suppose not long enough to get its own official part).

The two segments are really only connected by theme, with the '80s stuff seeing Constantine, fresh out of a mental hospital, wandering around London at the start of the Falklands War while pondering the nature of magic, which is a bit like his old puck rock career, all of it standing for his now-cooling idealism in the face of a demonic world. He then shacks up with a possibly-imaginary woman who tells him of the stealthy magics squirreled away in the architecture and heart of the city, wriggling "a silver snake of thin resolve" into him - my hallucinatory girlfriends have similar phallic properties, so you can tell why this tale's my favorite.

Part two follows the adventures of John's ancestor Kon-sten-tyn, an amusing mix of (not already unrelated) aspects of St. Constantine of Cornwall, St. Gildas' loathed trickster monarch Constantine of Dumnonia and the folkloric Constantine III of Arthurian succession. He's a rotten old bastard who keeps the head of Merlin around to recite epic poems about him, but he's devoted to keeping certain Old Ways alive. It's a great opportunity for Delano to riff on the Christian incursion into the magical basis of so much folklore, with his acrid hero gradually setting aside the bloody ways of epic heroism in favor of beautiful stealth, becoming like the enemy to subvert its foundation.

The origin of the rogue! No wonder our Constantine rises in the morning, at the end of that second part, ready to slink behind the popular culture and shout at the back of its head, his art and his magic one and the same. Same as a comic book, slightly obscured behind Hawk & Dove on the racks but shouting out against its none-to-veiled foes, a diabolical signature within the church of continuity, a fancy-pants sigil for which a title might need be devised.



All Hellblazer writers leave their mark on John Constantine, that mage and rake, that "insouciant, somewhat amoral occult dabbler and 'psychic detective' with a British working-class background," in Delano's own words; as Tom Spurgeon once remarked to founding series editor Karen Berger, the character is a bit like Dr. Who in that some of his appeal comes from watching him 'played' by different writers. But he also remains the same - Delano's take on the character certainly drew from Moore's (from his famed tenure on The Saga of the Swamp Thing), just as his caption-heavy writing style challenged the verbosity of the Magus at his purplest:

"Synapses flash and pop, like flashbulb supernovae as the particular passion of my being is caught up in a sub-atomic slam-dance."

"Consciousness is snatched by electron rip-tides and thinly spread through infinite spatial black, leaving thoughts -- rare sleeping islands -- separated by oceanic eternities."

"I'm stretched, elastic life wound in a double helix round the universal pole --"

"-- a string of neurons in the cosmic brain --"

"-- resonant, my being tuned to everything."

"Now, contraction catapults my soul into a new, triumphant birth. Rhapsodic, bathed in perfect grace, I sail for eons --"

"-- blessed in beatific tranquility, alive in a universe of glory --"

"-- at play with angels above the fierce and holy sun."

"But, transient as elemental thought, my voyage lasts but brief mellennia."

"Sweeping on a high, wide spiral turn, my ship of rapture founders, grounded on mortality's reef."

"Particles reassemble and memories coalesce around my swelling sense of self."

"I must start the long return to dull corporeality and reclaim my body's tawdry clay."

Those are the captions from a single two-page image in issue #7, documenting a man's trip through exotic Cyberspace, circa 1988; I left out the dialogue, but there's some of that too.

Moore would later claim that it seemed the tone of a lot of comics that drew from his influence was built from a bad mood he happened to be in at the time, but I think a more immediate effect was a replication of his 'novelistic' on-page writing, attempting to drag comics closer to 'real' books by dumping a lot more words into them. Moore, of course, would also display a grasp of structure so as to augment his vocabulary, something many later writers, the Delano of Hellblazer included, did not exhibit.

Yet, Delano's performance did have a defining pinch, and it wasn't just prickly thickets of words that did it - his work on the series married a distinctly angry blend of socio-political satire with a sometimes uneasy juggle of fantastic, even superheroic elements. There wasn't any Vertigo back then to systemically insulate the Suggested for Mature Readers contingent from the rest of the bunch, after all - when Delano had the young Constantine belt out a punk rock number in the aforementioned Annual, there was a reference to Superman contained therein, and it's impossible for the reader to forget that John isn't necessarily shouting in metaphor. Superman is real to John Constantine, and he's done absolutely fucking nothing to accomplish lasting change in Constantine's environment.

That perhaps made it all more effectively bitter -- and it rather matched the tenor of various actual DC superhero projects of the day, Alan Moore's bad mood and all -- but it also assured that Delano would be working loud, with typical adventure comic elements sometimes clanking around as the series found its footing. Early on, Constantine was more of a debonair globetrotter, jetting away to Africa and the US in his good blue suit to barge into decadent casinos, strike up an uneasy alliance with a near-supervillian in the heart of his lair and face off with a monster threat on a skyscraper rooftop. He was an antihero from the start, but he wore some cool fucking sunglasses while doing it - at least until Delano knocked them off, to force him to see the implications of his deeds.

The 'commentary' aspect was present from the start, and often shrill - issue #3 had establishing scenes in Hell (just like a Jack T. Chick comic), where demons are seen to behave like (gah!) yuppies and thrill over Tory election victories. Even as a few issues passed, and Delano began to hammer out a firmer vision of the character -- more haunted, more rumpled, more street-level, iller-fated and ruinous yet charismatic at heart -- his yen for booming consideration of local and global problems remained, sometimes to the exclusion of the comic's main character.

Issue #5 is maybe the first example of Constantine fading into the background, while Delano details world horror unfolding. The mischief of (awk!) televangelist magic causes a small, patriotic American town's departed sons -- they mostly died in Vietnam, but it's still the sort of place where old ladies are ready with a slap and lines like "Shut your lying face, traitor slut!" -- to return again, except they also take many horrid wartime acts home with them, believing the conflict to yet continue. So, good citizens are held at gunpoint, a kind woman is raped and an air strike is 'called in' via a helpful gasoline tanker exploding in everyone's face, save for John Constantine's, as he is too busy standing agog, ready to vow that he has learned something important from the whole awful experience, just like Buster Brown at the end of every Sunday.

It would be a motif of Delano's run: wicked magic as a manifestation of some world ill, and John Constantine as a sort of well-read everyman, ready and capable of affecting real change, but sometimes forced to merely treat the symptoms, or left to bear witness to the horror. And if any cunt can do magic, as one practitioner said to the other, then any dumb fuck can educate his or herself about the state of the world, right?

Hence, finally, the story in the title of the post, which is also collected in the book pictures way up top.



The Horrorist was a two-issue, Prestige Format miniseries released in the last month of 1995 and the first month of 1996. It came well after the end of Delano's proper run on the title (issue #40, 1991), and even his one-off return (issue #84, 1994), although Delano would still have more to do - his future-set Hellblazer Special: Bad Blood miniseries hit in 2000, and he's got an original graphic novel, Hellblazer: Pandemonium (with art by Jock), in the pipeline for later this year. The Horrorist didn't even bear the Hellblazer title. Hell, it was released under some 'creator participation' deal with Delano & artist David Lloyd retaining the copyright and DC keeping the trademarks.

Regardless, it is a culmination. It is, to my mind, as of right now, the ultimate Jamie Delano Hellblazer comic, the very conclusion of those themes and motifs delineated above. It has the best, most awful John Constantine, and the loudest, most screaming terror over the state of the world. Is it blunt? Over the top? Yes. But it goes so far, in so short a space, it leaves reality itself frayed to a disturbing degree, and thereby accomplishes something Delano's Hellblazer, as much affection as I have for it, never quite did - it's actually kinda scary. Or at least disquieting, on a base, primal level.

The tale begins with a strange woman appearing in a snow-covered park in Illinois. She sits impassively as children romp and play, their football in one panel covered with marks resembling the continents of the globe, in case you couldn't already guess in which direction the commentary was headed. The young Americans throw the world around with gross abandon, while a happy local fellow tries to strike up a conversation with the eerie woman. But she only stares at the kids' rough play, grasping her head as two of them make a dive straight into a famous banned-in-the-US commercial, Lloyd rendering the carnage as leaping Mattotti plumes of flame. The happy fellow then flashes back to 'Nam and sputters:

"Not now... not in the U.S.A."

The uncanny woman assures him that he's now fully incorrect:

"It happens everywhere."

Hey, I doubt John Constantine's punk anthems were terribly subtle either.

Speaking of which, the scene then shifts to Our Man, drinking and observing a pool game between local roughs. He orders a gin and tonic.

"Thass a queer's drink, innit?" queries a local man.

"Twenty-five quid if you suck my dick," replies Constantine.

"I'll do it for fifteen," declares a beautiful woman who appears out of nowhere.

It's the start of a great romance, one to make Kazuo Koike proud, although Constantine insists that he's ice cold, a characteristic Delano then proves by having a man's throat cut open and blood spilling in John Constantine's drink and he just doesn't care, he and the woman leaving bloody footprints (of apathy!) in the snow as they leave. Then the woman sets John up for some sexy whipping, but even her worst cannot flay Constantine's leathery skin of uncaring, hard-living isolation.

"Harder, you pathetic stiletto bitch! I still can't fuckin' feel it!"

The woman then weeps and begs Constantine to stay with her, to which he calls her bloody stupid and storms off into the cold. Ah, but fate has tricks in store for our chilly John Constantine! He has a vision of the spooky woman from the top of the story, at which point a trash can bomb explodes nearby (but a taste of what the rest of world feels so often, John Constantine!!), and he realizes that there's something out there that can make him feel. A quick trip to a photographer confirms the story of an African child adopted and brought to the US, her image stripped of context and used to sell shit, her gaze haunting - and Constantine is off once more to the US.

As you may have picked up by now, a lot of this work is about the US. It was the same for some of Delano's run on the proper Hellblazer book - I'm sure everyone knew where most of the audience was situated, and thus where a good portion of the critique ought to go. And some of The Horrorist is no more carefully-put than that that Vietnam story I mentioned above (again: "Shut your lying face, traitor slut!"), with several boorish American mega-fatties meeting with an awful fate. But there's an odd dichotomy at work in Delano's presentation: the Americans we see are often silly and ignorant when faced with the strange woman, but rather sympathetic when meeting with John Constantine, as if Delano is chiding himself, in-story, for his own narrative cruelties.

Thus, as the strange woman meets up with a grinning truck driver, well, we're told (via caption) that he doesn't give a shit about politics and pays no attention to the rest of the world! Soon he's staring at boxcars full of grasping hands as a train passes by. He insists to the women that they must be "deportees, or death-row cons. Murders, rapists, gangbangers... terrorists." But then he telephones his wife and finds out that his own children were just taken away for reeducation! Then his truck crashes and he dies. Wait, we don't find that out until the next issue.

In contrast, as Constantine confronts the former adoptive family of the curious woman, he acts with general callousness at their expected tale of death and woe, leaving without offering any comfort, then finding the happy fellow from the start of the book setting himself on fire as the first issue ends. John appreciates the woman's sense of irony, at least.



Now, I know what you're saying (because I installed microphones in your home): 'Jog, this comic gives me the impression of Jamie Delano impressing my head with a hammer, like what happened off-panel at the end of The Crow, only allegorically this time.' I would agree; that's a fair estimate. However: it is comprehensively impressive -- and very beautifully drawn, mind you -- damned intent on stretching Delano's concept of magic-as-global-awareness as far as it can possibly go, so far as to wind up in a funny, terrible place, the logical finale of Delano's Hellblazer.

Much of the first half of issue #2 is spent on the woman wreaking havoc on hapless Americans - as you can tell by now, her uncanny power is to bring atrocious problems often pegged as exclusive to 'less developed' nations into the US. Literally. As in, the happy local guy from the beginning didn't just see kids get blown up by landmines so as to goad him to suicide, they actually did get blown up, which means that those landmines 'always' existed in the park - the story is quite clear on this point. It follows that the grinning truck driver actually did see real boxcars full of people get carted around, and his kids did get sent to... a reeducation camp?

Being an admirer of the Austrian School of Comics Criticism, I shall dub this phenomenon 'fiat magic.' As in, the effect of the odd woman's 'spells' institutes wholesale shifts in the recent history of her immediate region so as to create the desired result. For example, a nervous driver nearly runs the woman over. He informs her that he has children waiting at home (uh oh!). Sure enough, he arrives back at the house to his beloved daughter and stocky son (who is grinning and watching violent American televised entertainment), only to discover that all their food is gone! And they've always been poor and are suddenly starving! Desperate, the man drags his beloved daughter into the car and pimps her right out to a nearby live sex show, which apparently has always existed to keep women in literal sex slavery.

You see? Fiat magic.

And Delano pushes it so hard -- and Lloyd's dreamlike images flow so steadily over the stones of realism -- that it does affect me, in tearing at history and situation like it's nothing. Like the simplest incantation can not only affect your perception of reality, but erase anything you'd previously thought and substitute a whole new history for you to have lived, always a worse one. Damn better than devil conservatives fucking around in Hell. It's more like Delano's first-ever Constantine story, the blue suit sunglasses skyscraper one, which saw its monster threat as a living manifestation of third world hunger set loose on New York - but John is worse off here, with a more experienced writer playing him.

Eventually, as it had to happen, Constantine and the woman meet up. Their conversation is charged with some self-reference, Constantine mocking the very premise of the book he's in:

"I know what you are... you're a bleedin' horrorist -- a redistributor of suffering, perpetrating revolutionary outrage in the cozy heartlands of oppression and complacency!"

But he admits there's worse things she could be:

"You could be a cold, dead-veined, old hell-junkie like me -- a burned-out, tourist voyeur..."

"Yeah... make a good epitaph, wouldn't it? 'John Constantine. He came, he saw... he took some fuckin' pictures.'"

It's a revealing thing to say, for a character made to witness many allegories of strife and suffering; done mocking the premise of his current book, could he be expressing doubt over the impact of his earlier affairs? Wasted and spent from his adventures, his writer long-gone - this is why The Horrorist seems consummate to me. It's both an expansion and a reflection of what Delano has done before, a long look taken at finished work with some time taken away from the stuff.

Anyway, the story climaxes with John Constantine and the woman ripping off their skin to have dripping muscle sex (this was in the Keanu Reeves movie, right?), at which point both envision brutal acts done, great trials suffered, the whole of world suffering crashing down upon them - quintessential Hellblazer. Then John wakes up. It seems he has fucked the woman to death, and she seems at peace (hmm, rather men's adventure there, like at the start!). Outside the world is burning from fallen shells - it's probably just the block, but I like to imagine the whole of the United States of America has totally collapsed. To hell with Superman continuity! Everyone is sad and dying, but Constantine is happy and smoking, his sexual experience having relit his passion for change, just as his dalliance with the imaginary woman did in the Annual #1. Always a rake.

"Goddamnit, it's true... I care about these fuckin' imbeciles again. I even care about myself."

This line is delivered with gleaming blue eyes as a bent-over person cradles his/her face in burning agony in the background - it's tempting to say that all of this horror came down on stupid, shitty, fat Americans (boooooo) as a means of doing nothing more than reawakening the kindly heart of salt-of-the-earth working-class soul of liberal humanism corporate-owned property John Constantine, a goal greater than anything else, but... the comic kind of admits that fault in its po-faced finale, John Constantine dancing around the ruins of a town/nation. I mean, when the book runs off of suffering, you've gotta fess up to the fuel you're using, you know?

And then, while John bends over to help a large person look for their lost child, we see the strange woman has gotten up and left, her blood stains formed into the very subtle shape of all the continents of the world! Her bloody footprints trail out of the final panel, across the inside-back cover, and right out of the comic - into your world, reader! Unless you bought the trade version I mentioned above, which omits all of that stuff!

No matter. We need to be told this no more than we need to know that Superman comics are imaginary. We're not John Constantine - we don't need to sing about him flying around.

But we can perform his magic. Like he told Alan Moore. Like he told us when Jamie Delano played him.

No fiat magic either. Soft as it could be, we've had a gold standard set.

Labels: Jog

Click Here to Read More...

The first act of BLUE BEETLE winds to an end between issues #7 and #12.

I: CREATIVE CHANGES

BLUE BEETLE loses co-writer Keith Giffen after issue #10, leaving screenwriter John Rogers as the book’s sole “pilot”. Artist Cully Hamner leaves the book the same month, ably replaced by Raphael Albuquerque.

Perhaps the most confusing thing about this comic is the fact DC leaves Albuquerque on BLUE BEETLE, rather than promote him to a “higher profile” assignment. Does Marvel transition their stronger artists significantly more often? It seems that way to me but maybe that’s because I pay more attention to Marvel. Anyways, maybe he stays on BLUE BEETLE by choice. I have no idea.

II: THE WORLD TOUR

Two or three boring and inconsequential “adventures” go by, not worth summarizing. A variety of flashbacks answer various minor questions, like “Why does the Peacemaker know Blue Beetle’s scarab came from outer space aliens?” and “What happened to Blue Beetle during the INFINITE CRISIS, eight months earlier?” and “Who would be the wife if Blue Beetle married Captain Atom?”

There are pleasant moments. If you enjoy the wisecracking, you might enjoy a brief appearance by Green Arrow & Whatshername:

Two issues involve a completely pointless team-up between Blue Beetle and NEW GODS characters. DC’s grandest, most epic, most… well, most KIRBY characters once again reduced to rote, supporting cameos in a C-List character’s book.

If you like the NEW GODS, it's annoying seeing those characters treated in such a slapdash way; if you don't, then it's probably annoying to see them at all. So: ellipsis followed by a question mark, yes ...? Then again, Luke Cage once fought Doctor Doom over a couple hundred bucks, and that's a fact everybody (myself included) is pretty happy with so perhaps I'm overreacting.

That’s all part of the World Tour for BLUE BEETLE.

The World Tour’s my pet name for a set of issues that are mostly an excuse to introduce a new hero to some aspect of the DC Universe, rather than tell a story necessitated by the premise or the characters. For BLUE BEETLE, the World Tour includes (i) the time Blue Beetle meets the New Gods, (ii) the time Blue Beetle hangs out with Green Lantern, (iii) the time Blue Beetle meets the Batman, (iv) the time Blue Beetle meets Superman, (v) the time Blue Beetle meets the Teen Titans, (vi) the time Blue Beetle met the Spectre, and (vii) the time Woody Harrelson taught Blue Beetle to retain his ching.

Outcomes vary: for example, the Green Lantern issue felt reasonably necessary to the story. But I personally dislike World Tour issues. It’s time spent away from the supporting cast or from creating a unique point of view for the book itself. And worse, it encourages short-hand characterization of “I’m not like Superman because I ______” or “That may work for you, Green Lantern, but I prefer to ______” or “I can feel you in my _____, Batman; your _____ feels like its tearing me apart; please don’t ______ in my ______ or I’ll become pregnant with your Bat-________.” (Oh, Hentai-Batman, you’re my favorite).


I have an impatience to me. I want to find out what happens next. And a World Tour issue only very rarely says what happens next; it’s typically a distraction away from whatever mysteries or conflicts power a particular book. They're digressions; anecdotes. Look: I hate to brag, but one time, I saw the actor who played Carlton from the Fresh Prince, standing around at JFK Airport. That happened. That’s something that actually happened, for me. I can dine out on that for years to come. But when I write my memoir, (OH SHIT: I'M OLD; Random House: 2012), that’s not going to be a chapter in there. It’ll just be an endnote, somewhere in Chapter 2: “I’ve seen some awesome things; I don’t deserve this shit.” And then “ENDNOTE: One of the awesome things was that I once saw Carlton from the Fresh Prince near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Poetic license! New York Times bestsellers list ahoy!

There are good things that can be said about a World Tour, but for BLUE BEETLE, during the book’s second act, it ultimately becomes a near-fatal distraction to more pressing elements in the book.

III: AN OUT-OF-NOWHERE DIGRESSION ABOUT STARMAN

I also find the World Tour interesting in how it signals creators oblivious—- if not hostile—- to posterity.

I re-read the DC comic book STARMAN the other day. It had been my absolute favorite comic for the first twelve issues. But by issue #36, I had quit the book, angry, just ... ANGRY, cursing its name.

I’d always wondered if I’d made a mistake, if I'd over-reacted, if I was being silly, so I went and read it beginning to end. Turns out? I got lucky. While the first 18 or so issues hold up beautifully, just beautifully, past that, the book goes into a horrifying nosedive. Story arcs drag on indefinitely; the book’s best feature—- its love of DC history—- becomes an anchor around its neck. The book ends and ends and ends—- it has more endings than some bullshit LORD OF THE RINGS film. Each resolution to one of the book’s mysteries is less satisfying than the next. And Tony Harris’s departure blows open a hole that never gets filled despite some admirable efforts by other artists.

The first 18 issues are such terrific work, though, so exactly and totally what I look for from a mainstream comic, that I’d happily recommend the recent STARMAN OMNIBUS. The main character is both universal and specific; the writer doesn’t pretend only superheroics matter, but is eager to share opinions about art and music, culture; the book is enriched by comics history; the setting, the supporting cast-— here is a world that feels lived in and alive; the DC Universe becomes a fictional world worth visiting.

Re-reading it, I realized I’d been unknowingly and unfairly comparing later books like BLUE BEETLE to that early run. Jack Knight had a personality; where’s Blue Beetle’s personality? Starman reflected its author’s passion for old movies; what passion does Blue Beetle reflect? Et cetera. How much can be done with a mainstream comic!

But… but: STARMAN was another book fond of the World Tour, to its detriment. The book’s unquestionable low point is a 5000 issue-long tour of the DCU’s outer space. And it’s another book oblivious to posterity. A significant chunk of the book relies upon Neron.

You know: Neron.

Neron was the lead villain in UNDERWORLD UNLEASHED, a freakishly awful DC crossover from the 90’s. He’s made minor appearances since but the minutae of the Underworld Unleashed crossover play a notable role in STARMAN. Much like BLUE BEETLE, STARMAN’s creators were eager to incorporate DCU storylines into its plot.

Which is fine: if you expect that no one will ever possibly want to read your comic book months or even years later.

An excerpt from Starman #35 featuring that one super-lame Electric Blue Superman.

Is a disregard for posterity a bad thing? I’m honestly not sure. Orson Welles once said “It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.” On the other hand, after saying that, he promptly ate a live cow, drank a tanker trunk of whiskey, tried to sell some green beans, and performed the voice of Unicron in TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE before vomiting all over one of Peter Bogdanovich’s trophy blondes. So, who knows?

IV: PREJUDICES

Blue Beetle acquires a “mentor” figure in Peacemaker, a minor DC hero notable for fighting evil with a bucket on his head. They at least updated him. By taking off the bucket. Which was a good start.

Bucket.

So: we have a screenwriter writing a story about a Mentor Figure tutoring the Chosen One on his Hero’s Journey.

Ugh.

Look, I’m prejudiced. With a few exceptions, when a comic book writer is a fancy-pants Hollywood screenwriter, I just go in prejudiced. Is it as bad a flare-up for my prejudices as, say, when a wannabe comic tries to look like bad manga? No, not even close—- but I have a good sized chip on my shoulder. I have this irrational thing of...

“You’re not worthy of serious attention. This would be a nice place if it weren’t for you tourists. Fucking tourists!”

How crazy is that?? How many screenwriters do I know that are huge comic fans? How are they “tourists?” It’s completely nuts.

Bucket.

There are these screenwriters who sold a movie version of their Oni comic in April 2008; the comic comes out in an unspecified date in 2009. And I read that story, and I know and remember the name of their comic so I can specifically not buy it when it comes out. I’m THAT prejudiced! Why? Maybe they’re good and decent people who love comics more than any of us.

Why am I the petty and angry guy on the Internet? Is it resentment? Is it pettiness? Maybe it's all those things. Maybe I'm a bad person. I don't know exactly what it is.

I think for some fans, Senor Fancypants makes their delusional fantasies that they’ll somehow magically wind up writing IRON MAN that much more improbable. But I honestly don’t think that’s what it is for me. I really, truly don’t.

Marvel editors have argued in the past, something like “These guys really know story structure more than someone who just read comics.” But that ignores every single successful mainstream creator in comics right now, the majority of whom came from independent comics, smaller venues, clawed their way up. People for whom comics weren’t Plan B.

But: does that matter? Well, no, in the abstract, logically speaking: no.

Or I guess I always have the suspicion of … like when you hear someone go “I’m going to come at science fiction fresh because I’m not a sci-fi nerd. So, my story’s going to be about a spaceship where the computer in charge of the spaceship—get this—it goes insane.” I trust a native to know what’s tiresome and know what’s surprising and entertaining. But: again, that’s based on the faulty assumption that these guys aren’t fans themselves, so...

So: how crazy does this all sound? Hello, crazy. I know this prejudice is crazy; if it weren’t crazy, I wouldn’t call it a “prejudice.” I just know I have it and I should be honest about it. I think it’s important to have some degree of self-knowledge. For example, I know, I am absolutely certain, about myself that if I were ever a puppeteer, if I ever worked with puppets, I’d build my puppet with a puppet penis, but then I’d put pants on my puppet, right? Like, human pants, that would always be on my puppet, so no one watching would guess that my puppet had a penis. That way, if they ever fired me, I’d be able to pull down my puppet’s pants and scream “Eat this, Jim Henson!” I know that about myself, and I think it’s important to have that self-knowledge.

Anyways, it’s not like BLUE BEETLE should be congratulated for its clichés either. Watching some screenwriter fill out a Syd Field crossword puzzle is the opposite of entertainment. 34 across: “hero finds companions” (That’d be issue #9). 14 down: “mentor figure/guide died / gets injured and can’t accompany hero on final mission” (There’s issue #20). 18 across: Thing that erupts from my butt, four letters. Nor is the fact that each of these events is handled in a completely perfunctory way-- that the companions (a hacker duo, ala Mr. Ram Ridley from the Mark Gruenwald CAPTAIN AMERICA run) end up being insignificant to the story; that the mentor is "taken off the board" in some dull crossover with the SINESTRO WAR-- to the book's credit, no.


Bucket.

Labels: Abhay

Click Here to Read More...

The new Tilting at Windmills is live here

Always interested in your thoughts.

-B

Labels: Brian, Tilting

Click Here to Read More...

Here's the list of stuff that Comix Experience is receiving from Diamond this week...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #563
AMERICAN DREAM #4 (OF 5)
ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #9
ANITA BLAKE VH GUILTY PLEASURES #12 (OF 12)
ANNA MERCURY #2 (OF 5) PAINTED CVR
BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #8
BETTY & VERONICA #236
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #185
BIRDS OF PREY #119
BLOOD BOWL #1 (OF 5) KILLER CONTRACT CVR A
BOMB QUEEN V #2 (OF 6)
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #14
CASEY BLUE BEYOND TOMORROW #2 (OF 6)
CATWOMAN #80
CHECKMATE #27
CTHULHU TALES #3 CVR B
DARKNESS VS EVA #4 (OF 4)
DC SPECIAL CYBORG #2 (OF 5)
DC WILDSTORM DREAMWAR #3 (OF 6)
DEAD SPACE #4 (OF 6)
DEAN KOONTZS FRANKENSTEIN VOL 01 #2 (OF 5) PRODIGAL SON
DMZ #32
DOCK WALLOPER #5 (OF 5)
EVERYBODYS DEAD #4
EX MACHINA #37
FALLEN ANGEL IDW #27
FIRST BORN AFTERMATH (ONE SHOT)
FLASH #241
GEORGE R R MARTINS WILD CARDS #3 (OF 6) HARD CALL
GHOST RIDER #24
GRENDEL BEHOLD THE DEVIL #8 (OF 8)
GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #2
HELLBLAZER #245
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #118 SI
IRON MAN DIRECTOR OF SHIELD #30
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #141
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #2