"No WANDERING OFF." COMICS (and MOVIES)! Sometimes All Other Priorities Are Rescinded!

Hello! You can blame this one on a conversation I had at a party. I say party but at my age that's four men in a suburban living room with some nibbles and tinnies with the conversation always one slurred word away from movies. At that point it's all about ALIEN from my end of the couch. And so is this huge block of stale drivel. It's a bit wayward but if you stick with it I do mention comics eventually. Dedicated to the enduring magic of the wrestler, teacher and actor Mr. Brian Glover (1934-1997).

Anyway, this... In The Interest of Clarity & Fairness John Tells You What He’s Up To This Time Out

Bodged together with duct tape as they may be my sensors indicate a sudden flurry of micro changes in air density in the Dark Horse licencing department lately. Either this is to soften the sting of Weyland-Yutani Disney-Marvel nabbing back the licence to the children’s entertainment STAR WARS or because there’s a new ALIEN videogame out. Not actually being employed by Dark Horse I don’t really know. But it turns out that there’s a fat batch of interconnected limited series capped off by a finale issue. If I’ve got it right you’ve got four issues each of PROMETHEUS: RON & NANCY, ALIENS: PORK AND BEANS, ALIENS VERSUS PREDATOR: GREEN EGGS AND HAM, PREDATOR: FLARES & BEADS (or maybe they are all subtitled FIRE AND STONE, but where’s the fun in that, eh?) To top it all off there’s some bow tying by Kelly Sue DeConnick in a finale issue. No, I don’t know who’s drawing the finale but, yes, I know who’s writing it because that’s how comics (a primarily visual medium) works these days. So, you know, it’s been a while since I tried your patience so I thought I’d do something special for you. I ran the numbers and apparently in dollars the cost of all these comics comes to, let’s see, carry the one, and…a fuck-ton of money. It’s certainly a bit rich for my palate. So I’ll tell you what: I’ll look at the first issue of each. Financially it’s still a bit racy but that’s how much I love you. Hopefully the prospect of all this will grab you a bit more pleasantly than a big hand-crab trying to face rape you. Having actually read some of my writing I can’t guarantee that though.

It All Starts Promisingly enough But Then John is Immediately Side-tracked Into Talking About Movies he Hasn’t Watched For So Long He’s Really Just Talking About Memories And We All Know How Reliable That Jackass’s Memory Is

The idea was if nothing else I’d have a good time because, well, I’m enormously selfish and also because I really like ALIEN movies. Except after a moment’s thought I realised I didn’t. You can skip to the comics if you want at this point. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure Review!

Do you want to listen to an old man moan about movies turn to page 2.

Turn to page 243 and hear him complain about comics.

If you roll a 6 go and spend time with someone you love.

Take A Picture To Capture That Magic Moment Where He Shows Enthusiasm Rather Than Belittling Disdain or ALIEN (1979)

I do like ALIEN; ALIEN is great. No complaints on that score. ALIEN is the movie that comes for you in the night. ALIEN is one of those movies which you watch for the first time and you feel something click firmly home and you know you will be watching this movie for as long as you are watching movies. I have been watching ALIEN for about thirty years with the odd break here and there to live this life thing and I still never get bored of ALIEN. ALIEN is. ALIEN. ALIEN. ALIEN. Jeff “Altered States” Lester wrote about ALIEN here because Jeff Lester is a man of great taste. (Although in his characteristically dazzling piece he forgets that the big difference between ALIEN and STAR WARS is STAR WARS is for children.) Some of you might remember Jeff Lester and his partner in wonder Graeme McMillion$ from before. Before they set out for the new life which awaited them in the off-world colonies. I wonder how their new Patreon funded life of steak and fine wines is working out for them. Watch out for that gout, guys! Anyway, ALIEN; the pinnacle of people trapped in a hostile environment being picked off one by one movies. ALIEN; crew expendable: story of my life; story of all our lives. The massive (I’m talking creative not financial; sheesh) success of ALIEN is all very odd because ALIEN should just be a piece of enjoyably trashy genre hokum, but it is in fact far better than that. Decades after it burst into cinemas it still leaves me feeling soiled and twitchy after every viewing. And that’s hardly because I don’t know what’s coming; it’s because ALIEN has real power. ALIEN has the power of nightmares; the power of the poorly suppressed thought; the power of the suspicion that the Universe never got the memo about you actually mattering. In ALIEN as soon as they answer the distress call everything doesn’t just start going wrong, everything starts becoming wrong. I’m not even getting into all the stuff about the leathery egg sacs, organic openings and mobile, fanged phalluses (Phallusi? Phalluseseses?). ALIEN is. And it remains so to this day.

A Superficial Look At The Last James Cameron Movie He Enjoyed Ends Up With Us All In An Arcade In Cornwall or ALIENS (1986)

After that it’s ALIENS which is still good stuff. It’s James Cameron and the big thing about James Cameron is that the more money and freedom he has then the less interesting he gets. Luckily, with ALIENS he’s just about at the outer limits of my interest so I still have a good time. And that’s not bad for a movie that old; it still thrills and I still jump but it doesn’t wound like its progenitor does. There’s something redundantly comforting about ALIENS’ desire to explain (there are eggs; there is a Queen; they are like insects; I have killed the magic!) ALIEN doesn’t want you to understand what’s going on; some mystery stubbornly remains because, well, that’s unsettling. ALIENS explains things too much and becomes an action movie rather than a horror movie. It’s a very good action movie but it’s only a pretty good ALIEN movie. Experience tells me things get contentious quick with ALIENS but let me be clear here: I don’t mind ALIENS. The woman whose life I soil daily with my very presence thinks it has dated horribly. I don’t know, I think ALIENS still rocks. James Horner's urgent bin lids clatterthon of a score helps more than people admit. Could do without the kid though; Isn’t she plucky, now bugger off. Mind you, whenever the family unit goes on holiday we check out the arcades and have a pop on that ALIENS arcade game; the one with the mounted guns. That game is always somewhere in every arcade. I saw a new game where you shoot animals like an American but I don’t think that’ll catch on in Cornwall. Animals, no. Xenomorphs, yes. Stands to reason. Since I am a wholly regrettable human being I can only guess that the secret of a long lasting relationship is hunting down the ALIENS arcade game and playing it together. So, yes, I don’t mind ALIENS but it isn’t ALIEN. And, yes, someone out there will prefer ALIENS to ALIEN because the world will always need people who are mistaken.

“Thus arse RHEUM-ARE CuNDRoll!” or ALIEN3 (1992)

I’ll be uncharacteristically direct: ALIEN CUBED isn’t exactly a good movie. People let it off a lot because of its ‘troubled production’ and because David Fincher went on to do FIGHT CLUB. Me, I like it better than I probably should because it is filled with British accents. If ALIEN is HP Lovecraft’s BLUE COLLAR in space then ALIEN CUBED is HP Lovecraft’s PORRIDGE in space. It’s both comforting and amusing to think that in the far flung future no matter how far you go from Earth your lugs will still rattle to a Yorkshire bark. ALIEN CUBED is even more special to me because one of the accents is bellowed by Brian (KES) Glover, who not only looks like my Uncle Kenneth but, better yet, once pulled his car in on North Bridge to ask me and a mate directions to the digs he was due to stay in while treading the boards at the Civic Theatre. Yes, later in the ‘rub-a-dub-dub’ over some ‘laugh and titter’ we did both wish we’d told him to “stick to the road and stay off the moor”. I guess that’s not really my anecdote as such because I hung back in my usual fear of life but I nicked it anyway. Sorry, Justin. If you ever look up the unused scripts for ALIEN CUBED by William “Neuromancer” Gibson and David “PITCH BLACK” Twohy you’ll appreciate the filmed ALIEN CUBED even more as neither of the rejected scripts seem too concerned with the Alien. In fact they seem to begrudge the Alien’s contractually obliged interruptions of, respectively, the cold war analogy and the space prison hijinks which form the bulk of them. Both scripts continue the shift started by Cameron in ALIENS from movies about the Alien to movies about other things which happen to have the Alien in them. While ALIEN CUBED fails to be the former it at least struggles like a good ‘un not be the latter. Sure, like Twohy’s script, there’s a prison setting but, endearingly, Fincher & Co are clearly trying to make the Alien central again. The movie works hard not to have the Alien secondary to a larger analogy but to be integral to any analogies which might be occurring in the movie’s vicinity. I mean, it is a bit of a mess so I don’t quite know what it’s on about but I can tell it’s trying to be on about something; that always gets points in my book. I just looked and there’s a rejigged version on my Blu_Ray (I know; swanky!). It’s supposed to be well different with the Alien coming out of an ox rather than a dog and Brian Glover telling a protracted joke about remembering the Alamo (not really). I was surprised that, apparently, none of the dropped footage included Steven Berkoff as the movie largely consists of sweaty bald Englishmen shouting in thick accents so he seems an odd omission. Anyway, I should give that a decco. I’ll come back and edit this bit if I’ve had time to watch it. (I guess I didn’t get time.)

For The Entertainment of Children And The Easily Amused Faecal Matter is Referenced To Excess or ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997)

Similarly ALIEN RESURRECTION had a ‘troubled production’ but no one lets it off because it’s shit. It’s very pretty but it’s still shit. Here all ALIEN CUBED’s spirited resistance to the insistent trend of the Alien movies away from the Alien was steamrollered into the dirt. The result is a glossy action movie with a great cast (Brad Dourif!) and spectacular set design saddled with a script so shitty it smears everything about it. Worse, it might as well have had irradiated shih tzus in it as the Alien. My favourite reaction to this movie was that of the late and very great H R Giger in a documentary where, commenting on the Nu-Alien, he said something roughly on the lines of: “It was a piece of shit. Quite literally a piece of shit.” This terrible, terrible waste of everybody’s time, money and effort was written by Joss Whedon, but apparently it’s not his fault. He also did CABIN IN THE WOODS which I watched last week and that was also a piece of shit; this time because it was too busy being impressed with itself to actually be a movie. It was a lot like someone who thinks they’re above horror movies telling you about a horror movie they’d seen rather than, you know, watching an actual horror movie. It would have made a decent five minute skit, basically. Of course that’s because I’m old and certainly not because 90 odd minutes and several million dollars is a bit excessive for what is basically a smug joke about Scooby fucking Doo. Anyway, I’m sure that isn’t Joss Whedon’s fault either. So, yeah, where we? Oh, while ALIEN started it all off by beggaring expectations ALIEN RESURRECTION ends things by beggaring belief.

“I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed.” Or All The Other Stuff He’s Not Really Going To Bother Pretending He’s All That Interested In or PREDATOR/PREDATOR2/PREDATORS/ALIEN vs PREDATOR and PROMETHEUS

You shouldn’t really look so surprised when I tell you I really like PREDATOR, after all it is another people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one movie. It also has a script that’s as tight as a nut and just rolls like the goddamn thunder. Everything about it is great except the guy starring in it, but everything about PREDATOR is so great I can put up with him. Ugh, that guy; not even ironically, you feel me? PREDATOR 2 is okay; if it came on I wouldn’t leave the room but I wouldn’t seek it out either. People who know about science (“science-tists”) have told me that PREDATORS is a bit dodgy on the old science front. I’ll take their word for it but I thought it was a great-stupid pulp premise which, sadly, stubbornly refused to ignite the expected flares of delight in my hind brain. Maybe it’s because Adrien Brody is as convincing an action hero as Rod Hull. Also, Laurence Fishburne looked like he was in more danger from gout than predators. Maybe he was Patreon funded too. Now, you all know me and how I live in fear of being called an elitist but, holy fuck, really, I mean, those ALIEN VS PREDATOR moves sure suck. I’ll admit I’ve only seen the first one as that was enough; it was like an uncharismatic jumble of cut scenes from a video game. Perhaps the second one is the SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS of people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one movies. After all, at our works’ Christmas do (pies in a pub; the glamour of it all!) last year a gentleman in his twenties revealed these AvP things were his favourite movies. EVER. Yes, even better than COLOR OF NIGHT. I know! Basically though it’s hard to feel I was at fault in my dislike since by this point it had not escaped my notice that the Alien franchise was reduced to the level of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Oh, and I haven’t watched PROMETHEUS. Can I go out and play now?

Meanwhile Back At The Point or THE COMICS!!!!

PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Juan Ferrya Written by Paul Tobin Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by David Palumbo Dark Horse Comics, 22 pages, $£3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014)

This begins oddly with a prologue featuring a probe which is mobile enough to travel billions of miles through space and smart enough to analyse an entire environment but is neither smart nor mobile enough to avoid somebody’s foot. This foot is either a shout out to the movie (which I haven’t seen) or a secret to be revealed at its own sweet pace; it’s hard to tell because the story then jumps forward around 129 years whereupon Tobin proceeds to treat us to, well, a rerun of ALIEN basically. Sure, Juan Ferrya busts his talented nuts trying to disguise this by draping everything in the high-end hotel bathroom aesthetic of PROMETHEUS as opposed to the bedsit squalor of ALIEN, but it’s basically ALIEN all over again. That’s not a bad idea but unfortunately everything’s kind of pumped up to the extent that it starts to undermine things. There are a lot more characters here than in ALIEN but they are a lot more unlikeable and a lot more stupid, particularly as most of them are scientists and particularly as the ALIEN crew were verging on the suicidally daft in the first place. These Prometheans just sort of wander around blithe at the sight of all these “phenomena” (bit of science jargon there, cheers) which at best should necessitate a reconsideration of some of the more fundamental assumptions humanity has made about the nature of existence, and at worst strongly hint that the whole place is more dangerous than a jumper made of those bloody lethal Japanese kitchen knives.

These great minds of science find weird goop displaying the qualities of everything ever in chaotic flux and then casually slip a bit in their pocket for later; requests like “Can I take these alien ants which have displayed unprecedented ferocity back on the ship?” are met with “Oh, go on then.” These geniuses would play Twister in a room full of bear traps. The comic ends when they discover just such a room and decide to open the door without, I don’t know, “scanning” it or whatever science can do by 2219. I’m pretty sure by 2219 science will be able to tell us what’s on the other side of a door. Something to look forward to there. Anyway, some dude who is dying of an unspecified illness, maybe space-gout, is going to do something really stupid, a lot of people are going to die screaming and, er, Juan Ferrya sure draws pretty. He’s got this colouring thing going on where it looks like he’s done it all with really hard coloured pencils (yes, I know but with a computer; thanks) and I found that interesting. His attractive and sedate visuals are quite appropriate to what is basically a set up cum travelogue issue. It may have taken a whole lot of stupid to get things moving but PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE is professional enough stuff: OKAY!

ALIENS: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Patric Reynolds Written by Chris Roberson Coloured by Dave Stewart Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by David Paulmbo Dark Horse Comics, 25 pages, $3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014) This series takes place before the events of PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #1

If you’re anything like me (and for your sake I hope not) you’ll often wake up in the night wondering what happened to that bunch of colonists we didn’t see in ALIENS. Well, rest easy, pilgrims, because this comic is all about what happened to those colonists we didn’t see in ALIENS. Basically they got attacked by Aliens flew to the moon where that PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE comic took place and got attacked again. If this bunch had any luck it would be shitty. This series starts off with a bang and rarely lets up; consequently it’s all largely running and screaming like a someone’s thrown a load of Aliens into a January Sale. So it’s to Chris Roberson’s credit that he still manages to introduce his cast and demonstrate the characteristics which will define them for the duration of the mini-series. However, it’s to his demerit that this is all largely just running and screaming because that relies on the art being strong enough to stop it all feeling a bit breezy; a bit lightweight. Before I get stuck in I would like to say that the artist, as with all modern artists working from other people’s scripts, has my sympathies. I imagine the script probably read a lot like this: (Obviously I have no idea what the script looked like. Maybe Chris Roberson described everything to the last detail and even provided breakdowns and sketches. I’m just assuming here which is always a really excellent idea; I’m having second thoughts about this bit now. Hope no one notices.)

ALIENS: FIRE AND STONE

PAGE 1 (3 Panels)

We are on that planet from ALIENS or something.

PANEL 1: The colonists are running and screaming.

COLONISTS: EEEEEE!

ALIENS: HISSSSSS!

PANEL 2: An Alien gets a colonist. (Have fun with it!)

COLONIST: AGHHH!

ALIEN: HISSSSSS!

PANEL 3: There are now less colonists but they are still running and screaming.

COLONISTS: EEEEEE!

ALIENS: HISSSSSS!

That type of thing is good for an artist because they can do what they want but it’s bad because the multiplicity of options is just as likely to paralyse. It takes quite a bit of work and talent to make something like the above visually impress on the printed page. Here the art is by Patric Reynolds, the guy who did CITY OF ROSES in DARK HORSE PRESENTS. I didn’t like his art there but it works a bit better here. A bit. His line is still unsettlingly flakey suggesting everything in the world he’s depicting is inordinately friable (I’ve probably said that before; it’s still true). I don’t have some beef with the guy, he can clearly draw but he’s not really the best choice to illustrate a lot of running and screaming. Mostly because conveying motion would be handy but his panels resemble movie stills. And while everyone looks human and has a definite look it’s another case of the Amazing Photo Faced People. There’s a very real difference between someone pulling a “oh noes!” face and someone actually scared shitless; ask your dentist. He’s gamely attempted to adapt his photo referenced style to Aliens but it looks a lot like he’s got some photos of apes lunging about and scratched out an Alien shape over the top. However, since the script calls for the Aliens to be out in the open a lot Reynolds does have a tough remit. A lot of the threat, the unsettling otherness, of the Aliens just dissipates when you can see them (which is why you don’t see it properly until the end of ALIEN; basics, people!) In a further bid at appeasement I will say his space scenes are pretty nice, but they are few and far between; mostly it’s just running and screaming which he’s not really suited to. Again though, his art isn’t terrible; most of the issues I’ve sadistically outlined as problematic are ones shared by a lot of comics artist. Doesn’t mean I have to let ‘em past! As harsh as all that sounds none of the book was woeful so ALIENS: FIRE AND STONE #1 gets OKAY!

ALIEN VS PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Ariel Olivetti Written by Christopher Sebela Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by E.M Gist Dark Horse Comics, 25 pages, $3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014) This story takes place between the events of PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #4 and PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1

This one picks up after most all the cretins in PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE are dead. Most of them probably forgot to breathe, or maybe set fire to themselves because they were cold or tried to eat some live tigers. To avoid spoilers as to exactly how stupidly they died the book keep things vague, but it looks like the sickly dude did in fact do something fantastically ill-advised. Understandably then the unlikeable security guy has locked him up while they and all the other survivors fly off in the unattractively designed ship. It quickly becomes apparent that whatever the stupid thing the sickly dude did was it involved a Synthetic, Kevin Eldon. The effect on Kevin Eldon is a bit of a mixed bag; he now appears to be caked in a thick coating of icing but, balancing this, he can control it to make deadly fondant limbs. And while he’s now mentally inclined towards the more batshit end of the scale he can also control Aliens like they were hunt dogs. God giveth and God taketh away, is my take away there.

Most of the issue is Icing Covered Kevin Eldon casually strolling through the ship while talking and setting his Aliens loose on all the survivors. As if that weren’t a big enough pile of trouble some Predators take a break from killing wildlife on a garishly hued nearby world and decide to join in. Ariel Olivetti illustrates it in his usual style; the one which lurches unpredictably from genius to godawful. Sometimes even doing so between elements within the same panel. I think I was a bit tired at this point because both the art and story seemed a bit confusing really, but I did like how they solved the problem of getting Predators into the mix; they just show up! I know that might seem a bit simplistic but I don’t know how much sophistication you should realistically expect at this point. It’s ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR after all not ALIEN VERSUS MACBETH. (Give it time though.) OKAY!

PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Christopher Mooneyham Written by Joshua Williamson Coloured by Dan Brown Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by Lucas Graciano Dark Horse Comics, 25 pages, $3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014) This series takes place after the events of PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #1-4 and ALIEN VS PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1

This gets off to a strong start with a cover showing a Predator sneaking up on young Frank Miller who is apparently clutching what appears to be a severed Alien penis. Nothing inside lives up to that promise but I’d still argue this is the best of these comics. And I’d argue that despite the fact that this one has the slenderest wisp of a premise of any of the books I bought. Here, the unpleasant security dude has escaped from the confused mess of AVP:F&S#1 into this comic where he and his two chums are hunted by a Predator. That’s it. Three dudes on a spaceship get hunted for 25 pages. Then there’s a bit of a twist because there’s another three issues to go. As basic as the setup is (it’s Predator and people being hunted is what Predator fans pay for) I’d still argue that it’s the best comic here. And not just because I’m an argumentative **** but because it’s the best at being a comic. And I’m betting that’s all down to Christopher Mooneyham. I imagine the script he received wasn’t much in excess of:

PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1

PAGE 13 (3 Panels)

We are on-board THE SPACESHIP PERSES. It’s dark because of course it is, but we can still make out space ship stuff like corridors, ladders and stuff and things. It’s dark but not that dark.

PANEL 1: Unpleasant Security Man, Cocky Cannon Fodder Boy and Bald Lee Van Cleef Walk along the corridor.

UNPLEASANT SECURITY MAN: It’s hunting us.

COCKY CANNON FODDER BOY: Dude, your Mom is hunting us. BURRRN!

PANEL 2:

Unpleasant Security Man, Cocky Cannon Fodder Boy and Bald Lee Van Cleef Walk along the corridor.

BALD LEE VAN CLEEF: How jolly.

COCKY CANNON FODDER BOY: We’re on an express elevator to Kitchenware! Going Down!

PANEL 3:

They stop walking suddenly because Cocky Cannon Fodder Boy explodes in a shower of guts. (Have fun with it!)

COCKY CANNON FODDER BOY: Ack!

BALD LEE VAN CLEEF: Tsk!

UNPLEASANT SECURITY MAN: Ooh! We’re in a tight spot now!

PREDATOR: BOO!

But, unlike the unfairly maligned (by me) Patric Reynolds, Mooneyham makes every page pulse with pulp energy and an almost loutish swagger entirely appropriate to the subject at hand. Dude sure likes his Klaus Janson but there’s plenty that’s purely himself here. I enjoyed looking at Mooneyham’s Predator so much that that alone was worth the admission price. His Predator is just perfect, like a scarred spider carved from the pith of an orange. There's real impact on the page turn reveal when that dude shows up. BOO! This is genre comic book art from a time when comics didn’t bow and scrape before television. A time when comics didn’t tug their forelock in the presence of movies but instead revelled in their very nature. It’s genre comic art from a time when comics were proud to be comics. There is a feast of storytelling devices within this comic that put the polite “cinematic” devices of the rest of this bunch to shame. The comics above all largely work in long shot, medium shot and close up; they work largely in landscape panels with a daring inset to pop the monotony. And if its coincidence that all those terms are interchangeable with movie making then, well, it isn’t is it? And I get why it’s legitimate, to an extent, that the comics above treat the pages as screens (because after al I read them on a screen) I should stress that Mooneyham’s pages treated as pages worked just as well. If not better. By embracing the native skills of his medium Mooneyham provides a comic far more akin to movies than any of the placid and pretty offerings preceding it. Basically compared to any of the other Dark Horse comics above PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1 is like a box of fireworks going off in your face. It is very much not that the comics above are bad as such ,and they certainly aren’t wrong with how they go about things, it’s just genre comics are such weird things now, they come from such a weird place that I am just so grateful to find a comic that’s happy being a comic. Hell, one which exults in being a comic. It’s hardly Human Diastrophism but it’s bloody well done so: GOOD!

Phew. Believe you me no one is more glad that's done than me. Cheers and all that.

You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? COMICS!!!!

"Don't Make A Noise Or I'll Send The Devil A Henchman." COMICS! Sometimes My Eyes Get A Rough Ride!

Content, he said tersely, and spun upon his heel to leave.What? Conan. It’s Conan. It’s always been Conan. So cleave the break asunder and have at it with much vigour.

Anyway, this… CONAN AND THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE #1 - 4 Art by Ariel Olivetti Written by Fred Van Lente Coloured by Ariel Olivetti Lettered by Richard Starkings & Comicraft Dark Horse, $3.99 each (2013/4) Adapts Robert E Howard’s The People of the Black Circle Conan created by Robert E Howard

In which I decide to purchase one of Dark Horse’s apparently endless stream of Conan series. Because they are apparently endless aren’t they? But only apparently because everything ends (even Friends, thank Crom). Since his arrival in the Dark Horse stable (ho ho ho) Conan’s been busy; he’s been busy being a Barbarian, a Cimmerian, a King, he’s even done a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movie (Road of Kings) and now he’s an Avenger (in the general sense rather than the specific sense of Steed and Mrs Peel or those Marvel children’s entertainment movies). This series, Conan and the People of the Black Circle was of fixed length so, yeah, new readers sharpen your axes here. I jumped on board, as they say on the trolleys (Ding! Ding!). And why not, I have no beef with Conan; fact is I like the fact that there are always Conan comics going on somewhere, it gives life a sense of stability. When you get to my age that’s important. Hey, maybe Conan can fill that gap when Star Wars goes Marvel. Can the audience for the children’s entertainment Star Wars be replaced by that for the geriatric pulp sniffer’s entertainment Conan? Doubtful isn’t it? But that’s Dark Horse’s concern, mine is whether these comics were any good.

And the comics comprising Conan and the People of The Black Circle were pretty good because for starters the job Fred Van Lente does is a good one. Here he adapts a Robert E Howard short which means, as it is from the source of all things Cimmerian, it’s all as Conan-y as any Conan fan could want. Yeah, Van Lente does a good job though I did get a bit lost at times with all the to-ing and fro-ing and odd names but that’s not really on Van Lente; it’s more on Olivetti’s tendency towards visual uniformity and basically, let’s be fair, my personal inability to focus properly on narratives concerning people and places called things like Pizzazz the wizard and the city of Chuffbundle. I’m not joking either (about my failings; of course I’m joking about the names; get real, hot pants) those made up names just slip right off my brain and since those names come with the territory (the territory of Slickpiddle) it’s hardly the fault of the comic, Van Lente or Robert E Howard. Since someone who shys away from reading books with maps in the front enjoyed Conan and the People of The Black Circle I’d wager a cheeky smile at least that for a fan of this stuff this is good stuff indeed. There’s certainly plenty going on, there’s no little intrigue, some surprising developments and a both a wider scope and a greater level of characterisation than I, at least, have come to expect from Conan comics. The wizards aren’t just bad men clad in black potato sacks pointing gnarled fingers and hissing, they have a plan, and one of them even has the hots for a lass in harem pants. And as for the lasses, well, yes, the ladies have some agency; one of them is a bad lass and the other’s a princess but even the regal Rita (not her real name) holds her own (as well as Conan’s; calm down, it’s consensual). And Conan? Well, Conan’s Conan but maybe there’s a little more going on under that sofa arm of a brow than usual, but then Conan’s never been quite as thick as he was in that original flick. Nice one, Fred Van Lente! But then there’s Ariel Olivetti. Yes, there certainly is Ariel Olivetti.

Now, I know you don’t think so but I almost do myself a mischief sometimes looking for reasons to like things. I know you think otherwise but that’s because, and we’ve all noticed this, you’re really quite negative and you project that onto me. So while it would be easy for me to spit like a wet cat about the art of Ariel Olivetti I’m going to first say that he gives good Conan. Ariel Olivetti’s Conan is certainly a sight worth seeing; you certainly know he’s about when he’s thugging up the page. Here Conan is all pink tautness, oily sheen, vein bulge and black bangs; like a man shaped pork banger topped with a lady’s wig. There’s a hint of Big John Buscema’s broken nosed Conan about the face (and who broke Conan’s nose? John Severin. Fact.) but Olivetti’s Conan would wear Barry Windsor Smith’s sinewy Conan like a feather boa. He’s good, Olivetti’s Conan, I liked him; looking good out there, Conan. In fact all of Olivetti’s figures are good, really good; there’s a definite sense of density and conviction in the details which really sells them. And if there’s a tendency towards sameness (and there is; I mentioned it early, keep up) only intensive effort could avoid this when costumes and face foliage are, as the material dictates, so interchangeable. And, really, why expend that effort when ninety nine per cent of the people in the panels will shortly be dead. Because after all this is a Conan story and if you looked down on Conan with God’s eye then you’d see him as the point of an arrow of corpses stretching round the globe to a small village in Cimmeria. Yes, Olivetti’s people are quite, quite convincing even though the hats they wear look liked iced gems. Especially so, even. Unfortunately (and it’s the bane of my life too, so I sympathise) people have to exist in a world and the world Olivetti gives us here is somewhat less than convincing.

Which is weird because a lot of the time it consists of photographs or computer modelled scenery far more realistic than his convincing but clearly fantastical figure work. And so Olivetti’s excellent figures occupy a world seemingly wrought from combining snaps taken on the Olivetti family Tuscan holiday (circa 1987; caravans airbrushed out) and bits of children’s plastic castles. Being as kind as can be at its best this approach creates a wonderful sense of Harryhausen-ness with the discreteness of the elements (and the clear artificiality of one set) forcing your mind to just go with it; to just deal with it. Unfortunately a lot of the success of that approach in movies rests on the presence of motion for your imagination to be swept along by. Alas, motion is something comics are not known for possessing being as they are largely static in nature. Mostly then Olivetti’s approach flops flat on its face as firmly as a Gwangi with lassoed legs. Being slightly more realistic with the praise then, it’s a lot like that collage stuff Richard Corben did in the 1970s but I didn’t like that much either, and I like Richard Corben’s work significantly more than I do the work of Ariel Olivetti. Also, it’s 2014 and I’m not sure it’s a good use of more technology than got us to the moon to replicate mistakes made in comics four decades ago. For Corben those effects were a step on the road to a better artistic place but for Olivetti they threaten to become an artistic pothole he’s decided to curl up and kip in for the duration. And finally, to be most unkind; at its worst it’s a goddam eyesore. Bit of a mixed bag visually then. Sometimes Olivetti’s approach hits the cinefantastique jackpot and raises Van Lente’s solid efforts but mostly it doesn’t and so Conan and the People of The Black Circle can't quite get higher than OKAY!

And having no further concern, he and his companions sought adventure in the…COMICS!!!

All this and Earth, too? Hibbs starts on 5/2

Everybody loves comics!

ACTION COMICS #9: This is a lot more like what I was hoping for from Grant Morrison on a regular ongoing Superman comic -- focusing on President Superman from Earth-23. last seen in FINAL CRISIS -- but I was a bit surprised to not find the "real" Superman anywhere in the story. Still, Silver Age-y without feeling dated, and lots of fun things happen. Gene Ha's art was as awesome as always. I thought this was VERY GOOD. AVENGERS VS X-MEN #3 (OF 12) AVX: Brubaker's got the writing spot this week, so maybe that's why I felt this issue had a bunch more plot? I can't even imagine how this is going to read in trade, with it's crazy tonal shifts every issue? I thought this one was strongly OK.

DIAL H #1: China Mieville's comic debut, and it's pretty decent. There are a few mechanical problems with the set up (most namely: how do you dial four digits 0n a *rotary dial* phone by accident when trying to call for help in the middle of witnessing a horrible beating?), and I have to admit that I'm not sure that I at all like the notion that the H-dial is in a static location, but putting that aside, I very much liked this issue. (On the other hand, I always liked the Robbie Reed version as well) (Sockamagee!)

I liked the schlubbiness of the protagonist, I very much liked the dialed up heroes (Captain Lachrymose needs an ongoing series, stat!), and I just liked the general weird vibe on display here -- this comic could be perfectly at home at pre-Vertigo Vertigo, and whatcha know, it's Karen Berger editing her first superhero comic in 20-something years.

The art by Mateus Santolouco sort of veers back and forth between some Ted McKeever-looking wonderfulness to "Ugh, you need more fundamentals", but it certainly works with the book just fine. Overall: VERY GOOD

EARTH 2 #1: Having read this, I really really can't even begin to understand all of the faffing about in the pre-print interviews of "well, we really can't describe this to you", because, unless there's a dramatic change from what's on display in this first issue (which would then, arguably be a not-so-good FIRST issue), this seems easy to shorthand: it's the formation of a NEW e2-based Justice Society (though maybe they'll never be called that, who knows), where the set-up is in contemporary times, rather than ww2.

I'm a pretty big ("real") JSA fan, and I didn't really like any of the new costumes we've seen so far, so I was suspicious of this at first, but yeah, I very much liked the setup and world building, and slow roll-out of characters.

James Robinson's script was solid -- I felt a real emotional tingle in that scene between Bruce & Helena -- and Nicola Scott's art is as strong as always. I don't know if I will like the new JSA, really (there's really only 7-8 pages of those characters, the rest of the oversized space is dedicated to setting up the world), but as a "Yes, I would like to see more, please" first issue, I thought this was VERY GOOD.

EPIC KILL #1:  If you want to see teenage hotties do acrobatics like River Tam in Firefly, with lots of slaughter, then this is surely the comic for you. Largely reading like a pitch for a movie, it at least has fairly pretty art by Raffaele Ienco that kind of reminds me of John Ridgeway, I think -- detailed, but with straight lines not noodly curvy ones, yet just ever so slightly stiff because of that. Anyway, since the base idea feels so "Seen that a dozen times", the joy of this kind of work is all in the *execution* of the idea, and there's just enough "hey, cool" scenes to have me say that this is GOOD.

GI COMBAT #1: Half the book is about soldiers fighting dinosaurs, so there's that, and as a plus the art is by Ariel Olivetti, and it really fits here; the other half is yet another new take on "Unknown Soldier", who is getting close to becoming DC's equivalent in the if-we-keep-relaunching-him-someone-will-like-it-eventually-right? sweepstakes to Moon Knight. I think they need to try again, as I was really entirely uninterested in this version, sorry. I think this may be a concept that just can't work in the 21st century, maybe because of the "unknown" part, and that doesn't work in our database-driven world (esp with regards to soldiers, I'd have to say). Anyway, like the first half, disliked the second, which means I can't say better then EH.

MIND THE GAP #1 :Another book that reads a little more like a pitch then a comic, but I thought this pitch was fairly terrific. The set-up is for a whodunnit kind of mystery, with the victim's spirit interacting on the, dunno, astral plane, maybe is what to call it, with what looks like a little touch of Deadman-meets-Quantum Leap, maybe?  Jim McCann's script is very strong, and the characters vivid, while the art by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback is realistic, without being creepy and off-putting, like some in that style become. As a bonus, this first issue is oversized @ 48 pages, and just a mere $2.99, making it a helluva deal. No doubt this was a VERY GOOD comic!

STAR TREK ONGOING #8: Given that the premise of the first six issues of this series was adapting/converting classic Trek episodes with the movie characters, you might have missed that they followed that with a two-parter (starting in issue #7), that followed up on the film, with the Romulans and the last drop of "Red Matter" -- I know I sure did until I grabbed this issue to read, and went, "Wait... that's not TOS!" (from the "next issue" pic, it looks like they're going back to that and "The Return of the Archons"). I don't know that I exactly care about the tattooed Romulan faction, or Red Matter, but it was nice to see something wholly new set in this universe (and, in theory, "official"). I thought it was highly OK, and if you miss the TOS characters, recast or not, this was a fun little follow-up.

SUPREME #64: Wow. this should be taught as a masterclass in how to utter destroy a previous set-up in 22 pages, and replace it with the exact opposite. I really loved the clever way that Moore set up his "all versions are true" love letter to Superman, and it's own set up gave all of the ability to complete rewrite the rules as new creators came onboard, but instead Erik Larsen rips it all to shreds and chucks it out the window for the ugliest possible of all iterations of Supreme. That takes mad skills, yo. The craziest part to me is actually the letter's page to the issue (which I suspect won't be in a digital version, sorry) where Larsen defends his actions by comparing this to following Todd on Spider-Man, or whoever followed Miller & Mazuchelli after "Born Again" in Daredevil. the difference, of course, being that there's a 15-or-so year gap here between issues, and while the argument is at least understandable when related to regular ongoing production of corporately owned icons (the trains, in fact, have to keep running), it's utterly bizarre in this case, especially after they went out of their way to try and show "respect" to Alan Moore by illustrating his final "lost" script.

Obviously, the difference between, say, WATCHMEN and this situation is that the creator of the property is the owner and can do whatever they want on work-for-hire material, but there's a dissonance here that my brain is ringing from.

Erik is a talented creator, and this work has a lot of energy, but I really liked the Moore version of Supreme (and pretty much hated the grim'n'gritty take that preceded it), so I thought this comic was pretty AWFUL

WORLDS FINEST #1: I have to say that if I were DC marketing, I wouldn't have scheduled the two Earth-2 related comics in the same week, but I just sell the things, what do I know? But, I also have to say that I really really liked this one, as well. Paul Levitz turns in the first script in months that I genuinely liked from start to finish, and the twin artist (George Perez in the modern sequences, Kevin Maguire on the flashbacks) really worked much better than I thought it would. Yeah, I really thought this was strong, VERY GOOD stuff.

The one problem? That logo. Jesus, that's a horrible horrible disaster -- it looks cluttered and terrible using the "across the room" test (if you can't pick a logo/design element/whatever from across the room, it fails), and it's not at all clear what the name of the comic IS, with "Huntress" being over "World's Finest". Yow.

X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) #1: If you read the original in the 90s, you've pretty much read this first issue, as it really alters very little of the original setup, just with a little more depth, maybe. It reads well, it's pretty enough, but I didn't feel like "OMG! I need to read the next one right now!" Maybe I'll check back in a few issues to see if they're doing new stories and not just retelling things I already know. Or, maybe I won't. OK.

Right, that's me -- what did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 71: Funk, Soul, Brother

Yep, a bit of a delay but here we are, more or less as promised: Wait, What? Ep. 71, featuring our new theme song courtesy of the hyper-talented Graeme McMillan. This done-in-one episode is not quite two hours and forty-five minutes and covers, um, lots of stuff.

Stuff like OMAC and the other cancelled new52 titles; the current state of George Perez's career and what Marvel's marketing team could do with it; Mark Millar's Trouble and Spider-Man; comments by Charles Vess and Ariel Olivetti about Marvel; Mark Waid's Amazing Spider-Man/Daredevil crossover, Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men as well as Wolverine #300.

Plus, a lot of babbling from Jeff about PunisherMAX #21; a debate how many "good" issues a creator might have in them; Secret Avengers, Astonishing X-Men, Warren Ellis, and in-canon behavior; James Robinson and Shade; the preview issue of Shonen Jump Alpha; and Marvel Two-in-One vol. 4.

See? Worth the wait. (Probably.)

We would like to think it is on iTunes, but we are all but certain you can listen to it here, thanks to the handy link below:

Wait, What? Ep. 71: Funk, Soul, Brother

As always, we thank you for listening and hope you enjoy!

“Hell erupts and Heaven can only CRY.” Comics? Bad for your soul, but I read ‘em anyway!

I read some comics. Did a little dance. Wrote some words. So I guess this me asking, "Something for the weekend, sir?"

THE MIGHTY THOR #3 by Matt Fraction(w), Olivier Coipel/Mark Morales(a), Laura Martin(c) and VC’s Joe Sabino(l) (Marvel, $3.99)

“The Galactus Seed 3: Stranger” Galactus lolls about on the moon as Asgard engages in pointless fights and wonky dialogue and all the while the people of Broxton become ever more tedious! Also: Sif’s bongos revealed!

This month The Priest With The Least is having problems with the concept of tolerance. Boy Howdy, those Theological issues are getting a real seeing to and no mistake. Priesty and his cronies are also now drawn with a somewhat demonic aspect. Hopefully this is foreshadowing their true natures rather than just ham handed caricaturing. Hey, a boy can hope even though the lack of subtlety or nuance in this thing is pretty substantial. There’s just a total lack of attention to anything beyond the surface dazzle and bluster, both of which exist purely thanks to the efforts of Olivier Coipel. Rather than being an actual Thor comic the whole lifeless exercise comes across as a bad cover version of a Thor comic. It’s dispiriting is what it is and that makes it EH!

IRON MAN 2.0 #4 by Nick Spencer(w), Ariel Olivetti(a) and VC's Joe Caramanga(l) (Marvel, $2.99)

"Palmer Addley Is Dead Part 4" The notionally moving tale of a talented boy who fell through the cracks is eviscerated by a total disregard for the comics medium! 'Nuff said!

Oh boy, this thing right here. There are no less than 8 pages of talking heads and this follows 6 pages of a woman in a library simply gaining access to a file, reading it and being a bit upset by the contents. There are 4 double page splashes intended to be emotionally affecting but, alas, each totally fails in this due to the inept execution. Respectively these resemble: an outtake from Commodore64 version of Toy Story, an illustration to a magazine article on predatory sex pests, a scene from a fumetti entitled "When Bins Attack!" and an  advert for Lego City: Urban Shooting Playset. This is a horrible comic because it isn't a comic it's an (ineptly) illustrated TV script. One that relies for any impact on the fact that you too have seen the same generic scenes and that you will bring the emotion you felt when seeing these scenes in a, hopefully, better realised context, to bear on this pallid vacuum and give it some semblance of interest or verve. This is not a comic and so it is AWFUL!

SCALPED #49 by Jason Aaron(w), R.M. Guera(a), Giulia Brusco(c) and Sal Cipriano(l) (Vertigo/DC, $2.99)

“You Gotta Sin To Get Saved: Ain’t No God.” Paths are crossed.Secrets are revealed. Scores are settled. A decison is made.

When a character does something that’s totally out of character? That’s bad writing. But when a character does something out of character and then you realize they haven’t, instead it was you who you had the character wrong? That’s pretty good writing. If you’ve read this issue you already know what I’m talking about and if you haven’t read it you best be waiting for the trade, lovehandles, because otherwise you’re missing out on some damn fine comics. Golly, it was beautiful. I was thinking, “Of course. How convenient!”, and then I ended up with cake on my face. The cake of fools. 49 issues in and these characters are still growing and still developing in ways which, while never predictable, are entirely consistent. It’s easy to lose sight of the subtleties of SCALPED embedded as they are in the lurid and sensational aspects which surround them but they always rear up into view at precisely the right point. And the art, well, let’s just say that R. M. Guera is often close to Moebius, and that’s pretty much like being close to God. In a good way.

I may be a fool but not to the extent that I'd doubt for one second that Aaron and Guera would be totally okay with this being a TV show. Yet in the first instance they created a comic which worked as a comic. And worked very well as a comic at that. Ambitions towards other media shouldn't result in a lack of ambition in the source material. Yeah, the bit with the phone alone was EXCELLENT!

DEADPOOLMAX #9 by David Lapham(w), Shawn Crystal(a), John Rauch(c) and VC’s Clayton Cowles(l) (Marvel, $3.99)

“Bachelor Party For Bachelors” Bob’s not getting married in the morning but is that going to stop his zany scarred assassin pal from giving him a night he’ll never forget? You can bet your sweet caboose it’s not!

I’m not proud of this but I should probably tell you that the last couple of weeks I’ve been pulling a “Bobby Shaftoe” and amusing myself by substituting the word “sh*t” for the words “Fear” and “Flash” in everything I read about Marvel and DC’s annual sales spike stunt comics. See, and it’s dead clever this, you get stuff like “Sh*t Itself” and Sh*tpoint” right off the bat and then the tag lines become “Do You Sh*t…Tomorrow!” and “Everything Changes – in a Sh*t!” and there’s now a “Sh*t wave” covering the earth and, this is my favourite this one, Professor Zoom – The Reverse Sh*t!

So, y’know, I have childish aspects to my personality is what I’m getting at. So maybe the fact I don’t find DEADPOOLMAX very funny is actually a good thing? You’ll notice Kyle Baker hasn’t drawn any of this issue which is better than him not finishing drawing some of the previous issues, which has been happening quite a lot. So I make a noise like EH!

DC COMICS PRESENTS NIGHT FORCE #1 by Marv Wolfman(w), Gene Colan/Bob Smith(a), Michele Wolfman(c) and John Constanza(l)(DC Comics, $7.99)

NIGHT FORCE – they force the night to surrender its secrets! If the night needs forcing that means it’s time for NIGHT FORCE! When the NIGHT FORCE…my lonely heart calls! Oh, I wanna dance with somebody!

Ah, sweet Gene Colan.  Gene “The Dean” Colan.  Truly a unique and delightful force in mainstream genre comic art. Beyond the oft-commented upon use of shadows and light I always found his work very similar to that of Gil Kane but less rarefied and more grounded. Where Kane’s work had an operatic fluidity Colan’s was more workaday hustle. While Kane’s characters soared and thrust, Colan’s figures stumbled and lurched within a POV that was more hectic than roving. His work had life bursting out of every panel but it was the life of a bloke rather than that of a demi-god.  You could aspire to be a Kane character given enough genetic engineering and a high tolerance for pain but you probably already were a Colan character.  And although Colan seamlessly grafted his style onto all manner of genres his art possessed an intrinsic familiarity to draw the reader in no matter how fantastic the four colour shenanigans. He was The Dean. He will always be The Dean.

This package collects NIGHT FORCE #1-4 from 1982 A.D.  The issues show Baron Winters recruiting a motley group of people with sad pasts in order to prevent supernatural evil elements from ensuring the world itself has a very sad future. Baron Winters is one of those oh-so-spooky chaps that appears never to age, has a different garden every time he opens his patio doors and owns a leopard called Schnorbitz. Sorry, I meant Merlin. (Obscure reference? Check and mate.) He’s also under some kind of supernatural house arrest, hence his need for human agents who can move freely in the world abroad! So we have Jack Gold (bitter smoker with a poor employment record), Donovan Caine (a professor of parapsychology who has a wife and child who, let’s face it, shouldn’t be starting in on any DVD box sets) and Vanessa Van Helsing (a kind of psychic nuclear attack in the form of a lady). The three are manipulated into close contact via the Baron and the government’s interest in Caine’s experiments. Taking place on campus these seem to involve trying to open the Gates of Hell by stimulating Ms Van Helsing’s nascent powers via the repeated application of orgies. Which is eerily similar to my experiences of not-studying at Coventry Polytechnic. Anyway stuff goes wrong and all kind of bad hoodoo gets a-cooking!

It’s fast pulpy fun which is either enhanced or undermined, your call, by its attempts to try and inject some maturity into the whole exercise. There are references to “open marriages”, “alimony” and, while the “orgy” word isn’t ever used, it’s clear that quite a lot of people are having quite a lot of fun in a confined space via the medium of physical interaction. Sure it’s clumsy and unconvincing but kind of endearing. Of course it was all for naught as in 1984 Howard Victor Chaykin would demonstrate how to graft a more mature sensibility onto genre comics. But this was 1982 and Wolfman and Colan have a pop at it and it doesn’t really work  but, hey, they sure snuck a lot of stuff past the Comics Code.

There are many things wrong with this comic but pretty much all the worst of them are due to sloppy (re)presentation rather than the creative types involved. The last page in particular is a right horrorshow. I guess no one could find a copy of this page so they asked someone who had read it when it came out to describe it over a faulty phone line to someone with a cheap pen and the delerium tremens and then everyone just crossed their fingers. It’s bad.

And, I really don’t want to sound like Andy Anal here but, the paper stock is all wrong. Mr. Colan has gone to some effort use some exciting techniques, mostly with craft tint (is that right? That dotty stuff.), but these depend on a layering effect to succeed and they fail totally because the image just sits right on top of the glossy paper with exactly and precisely no differentiation between the layered elements. The paper also works against the inking which is too sharp for the necessary haziness of Colan’s pencils. Okay, that was probably the case in the original but the old timey soft paper would have mitigated this while the new timey , oh, look even I can’t believe I’m talking about paper stock, but that’s just how much it doesn’t work. It makes it look like Gene Colan doesn’t know what he’s doing. Gene Colan knew what he was doing but the people who assembled this didn’t. Or did but didn’t care, which is worse.

Still, it was The Dean so it was GOOD!

So, yeah, COMICS!!! Buy 'em from your LCS - I do!