Wait, What? Ep. 120: Beat Up

Stunner stuff from D'Israeli in Stickleback, currently appearing in 2000 A.D.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends! (If I was Stan Lee, I'd offer a No-Prize to those of you who really get that reference...but thank goodness there is only one Stan and I'm not him.)

Join me after the jump for show notes for Wait, What? Ep. 120, won't you?  (Yes, there is one this week.  I assure you, I'm not pulling an April Fool's Joke on you a week late...OR AM I????

Nope, I'm not.

By the way, we offer on-air apologies but let me apologize here for not giving you all an on-site update about last week's unexpected skip week.   In the future, I'll try to throw something together to let website-oriented Whatnauts aware that we won't be around.  At the end of this 'cast, however, we mention our skip weeks for the next six weeks or so, so feel free to get out your calendar if it will ease your anxiety.

What was I...?  Oh, right.  Show notes!

0:00-16:44:  Well, nothing says upbeat like talking about dead people!  Graeme and Jeff briefly contemplate the passing of Roger Ebert and -- in a bit more detail -- the passing of Carmine Infantino.  Also included in the discussion (but still alive as far as we know): Terry Austin; Bill Sienkiewicz; John Peele; advocacy v. shrill pedanticism; our own critical failings; etc. 16:44-37:01:  And as we skate merrily onto thinner ice:  Age of Ultron; the Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite Comics; and a new thesis (All-New Avenging Thesis!) from Jeff about the work of Brian Michael Bendis.  And more discussion about the concept of naive cynicism.  It could well be very frustrating for those who have to participate in this conversation via comment threads (or brought it up in the hopes we would stop talking about this kind of thing) but there are some surprising turns in here, I think. 37:01-50:10:  The first of three things Graeme really wants to talk about this week: (1) Zombo by Al Ewing and Henry Flint (currently appearing in 2000 A.D.), which also includes praise for Stickleback by Ian Edginton and the amazing art by D'Israeli, and Dandridge by Alec Worley and Warren Pleece. 50:10-54:41:  By contrast, Jeff thought he would love Agent Gates, the super powered quasi-steampunk graphic novel parody of Downton Abbey by Camaren Subhiyah and Kyle Hilton. 54:41-1:14:14: The second of three things Graeme wants to talk about:  (2) Stormwatch #19 by Jim Starlin.  Graeme is perhaps not so pleased.  We also end up talking a bit about The Inhumans over at Marvel and openly pray for the return of HEX (which probably isn't usually referred to in all-caps like that but it gives you an idea of our fervor.) 1:14:14-1:14:49:  Intermission One!  (And what is probably my current favorite of Graeme's stinger tunes for us.) 1:14:49-1:24:04: Graeme has been on NPR! Jeff has left a glass of water in the next room! And Graeme's third thing he really wants to talk about this week:  (3) Marta Acosta's She-Hulk Diaries. 1:24:04-1:37:52:  But Jeff, all he wants to do is talk about Giant-Man.  Giant-Man, Giant-Man, Giant-Man! 1:37:52-1:46:53: And Graeme reminds Jeff that Avengers A.I. which is coming soon. And then we spoil Age of Ultron #3.  (You're welcome.)  Also included in the conversation (and filed under "Stuff Jeff doesn't know until Graeme tells him"): Marvel's next event and the death of Formspring.  (I actually had just a comma there originally since I thought there might be more to the list, and was tempted to leave it just so it would look like the title of Marvel's next event was "The Death of Formspring.") 1:46:53-1:56:41:  "Jeff, tell me about a comic you liked!"  Jeff's answer?  Season Five of Mad Men.  Includes the phrase, "the Thor vs. Hulk of my heart."  Bonus topic:  What do we read comics for?  (And for extra credit, guess which one of us really hates that question.) 1:56:41-2:14:07:  Graeme read DC Showcase Presents: The Flash, Vol. 4, so we get to talk more about Carmine Infantino, as well as Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, our favorite things about Infantino's art, whether Neal Adams destroyed comic book art, Dave Cockrum, and more. [Note: Jeff mistakenly says Dan Day at least once here when he means Gene Day. Oy.] 2:14:07-end:  Closing comments! Apologies, promises, blood oaths, and so the cycle is complete.  And lo, the cycle shall start again!

It's possible (yes, really.  Highly possible, even) that this podcast is already on iTunes.  But, as always, we make it available here for your delectation.  Are you not delectated?

Wait, What? Ep. 120: Beat Up

Oh, and don't forget to check out Abhay's thoughts about Scarlet #6, or John K (UK)'s thoughts on Robert Aickman, or any of the other material by people who don't have to read the coattails of a talented and charismatic Scotsman.   And, as always, we thank you for listening and hope you enjoy!

"The Cane Does The Rest." Comics! Sometimes They Are Butch!

So I managed to get an hour and I wrote this.  So, you know, it's hardly incisive or anything and certainly not structured but I hope it entertains. People like seeing other people fail, right? Tuck in! PUNISHER: BARBARIAN WITH A GUN By John Buscema (Artist), Chuck Dixon (Writer), Tom Palmer, Klaus Janson & Art Nichols (Inkers), Kevin Tinsley (Colourist and Jim Novak (Letterer) Collects PUNISHER: WAR ZONE #26-30 (Marvel Comics, $15.99, 2008)

This comic features the character of The Punisher created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Snr and Ross Andru here presented in an adventure I was drawn to purchase by the title and the presence of John Buscema. Also - it was on sale at my LCS for a fiver. In fact I was initially misled by the presence of John Buscema and the title to expect Frank to be swept up by a Time-Space vortex and dumped into Hyboria where he would initially act like Conan but with a gun but upon exhausting his ammo would then turn his 'Nam sharpened reflexes upon the populace of the stinky primitive land before being hailed King. This does not happen. However, if there is a comic where this does happen (and how could there not be?) then I am all ears.

What the comic delivers is, I guess, the next best thing. On the trail of a drug dealing brother-sister combo Frank is soon removed from the civilised and hygienic milieu of lovely America to the stinky and primitive land of The Caribbean jungle. No offense to my Caribbean chums but that’s how it’s presented here. This is a tale from the time before The Punisher was taken seriously (if anyone can in fact take PUNISHERMAX seriously; which it appears they can) but after the time when he wore white disco boots. The boots have been ditched by this stage which is a shame because I always believed they were his dead wife’s and he wore them as tribute to her memory. Luckily he still retains several of the goofier elements that I always enjoy about The Punisher. In several scenes Frank is pictured in a nice Hawaiian cut shirt emblazoned with his TM skull motif. This suggests that either Frank, like myself, holidays in Whitby and is partial to frequenting the make-your-own design T-Shirt shop just back from the sea front or that he spends his free time sewing and indulging his passion for crafts. Also, early on in the story Frank adopts a disguise. Now, Punisher disguises are one of my favourite things being as they are so terrible as to inspire hooting. My favourite was in the Punisher/Ghost Rider/Wolverine one-shot HEARTS OF DARKNESS written by Howard MacKie and illustrated by John Romita Jnr. In that one Frank grew a pencil tache and slicked his hair back. Luckily Wolverine’s acute smell sense pierced this quickly. I think he used his smell-sense but in all honesty he could have just used his eye-sense. In BARBARIAN WITH A GUN Frank wears a brown wig of no fixed style and another mustache. This works out pretty well until he meets a woman who had earlier seen him shoot the guy he’s disguised as and was also physically pleasured by said guy. Oh, Frank undone by sentiment!

So. Yes, it’s one of those old timey adventures where Frank has all the moral complexity of a brick and just batters himself against the obstacles in his way until everybody who should be dead is dead and then he gets on with a nice bit of sewing. It’s pretty well done, too. Chuck Dixon is certainly a professional at this stuff. He’s certainly professional enough not to let his personality infect the work and thus Frank never spends anytime whatsoever worrying about what consenting adults of the same gender choose to do with their genitals. Dixon is also professional enough to deliver a satisfyingly violent action-adventure romp that takes itself seriously enough but never too seriously. He does a really smart job on Frank’s clipped narration which includes gems like, “Carbine goes Winchester on me.” and “He’s asking for mercy. Sorry. Fresh out.” I dig that stuff, that He-Man steak and taters stuff and it’s all over this one.

There’s no politics either despite the fact that the island of Porta Dulce is bursting into revolution more often than a teen’s face bursts into zits. The ruling class are corrupt and violent, the peasants are corrupt and violent, the Americans there to make a buck are corrupt and violent even the crocs are violent (but not corrupt). The nicest character is a pig that just ambles through and rescues our bunch of heroes with its unerring sense of direction. And it is a bunch by this point because Frank has called in Micro and Ice Phillips. This latter character is a new one on me but he’s obviously got some “juice” because the back of the TPB declares “Guest starring Ice Phillips from Marvel’s controversial series The ‘Nam!” (The ‘Nam was indeed controversial since (at least for a while when it was written by Doug Murray and illustrated by Michael Golden)  Marvel published it and it wasn't awful and was in fact quite good). So one for Ice Phillips fans here! There’s a great scene between the trio where Micro almost spills the beans on why Frank does what he does to Ice (who apparently thinks Frank is just doing it for chuckles or something) and Frank says, “Don’t tell him. Don’t ever tell him. He doesn't deserve to know.” Which is super-pissy of Frank. Then he just flounces off! Ooooh, get her!

Of course all this is illustrated by John Buscema. Or John “The Don” Buscema. Now John Buscema wasn’t really the paterfamilias of a crime family in much the same way as Gene Colan wasn’t the head of a faculty in a school or college but Gene was still “The Dean” and John will always be “The Don”. He was also referred to as The Rembrandt of Comics which means he was frickin aces. It’s important to remember that John Buscema was frickin’ aces because the production of monthly comics didn't do him any favours really. He was mostly relegated to pencils so they could get more of him out there but, man, he loved inking his own stuff. And if you see any you’ll love it too. BARBARIAN WITH A GUN is typically Marvel Buscema as here he provides pencils and as bare as they may seem they still display his talent for framing and generally getting the stuff that matters into the panel in a way that’s unfussy and pleasing. Oh, and he still got emough ink on his brush to draw smoking hot ladies that embody the word "fleshy". Mind you he’s not helped by the buggers muddle of inkers, sometimes there’s more than one of them having a pop at his pencils in one issue.

These comics were originally published in 1994, I think, and John Buscema died in 2002 so we're definitely looking at a Lion in Winter here or at least one that’s feeling the chill a bit. It’s all still there though, all the Buscematic bustle and muscular pop just a bit sticky with the ink of others. It’s a bit odd really because we’re talking about John Buscema here and you’d think he’d have been treated a bit better. It isn't as though Marvel were unaware of the importance of Buscema’s work in identifying Marvel as being quite good. In fact as far back as 1978 Buscema was chosen to illustrate the book HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY. His art was chosen as the template for the sausage factory. Not Gil Kane or Jack Kirby,no, John Buscema. Mind you Jack Kirby and Gil Kane would probably have told Marvel to take a flying f*** at a rolling doughnut by that point. Or at least have pointed out that How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way was to have sound legal representation at all times, never depend on verbal promises and remember that you might need money in the future. So, John Buscema’s value was clearly acknowledged by Marvel but at the end they have him pump out some books that have to have the heavy hands of others all over them in order for them to come out on time. Kirby forbid John Buscema be given time to do some stuff the way he wanted at the end of career. Nah, just get those books out, Buscema? Never heard of him, never did anything for us. Where’s my Punisher comics?!?

This lack of respect extends to the physical artifact itself. While the creative contents are fine, even managing to entertain despite the mish-mash of inking, the physical contents lack even cursory care and attention. The cover is a graduate of the school of Intern With Photoshop, the colouring in general is imprecise and wishy-washy and when blood is shown to fly from punctured bodies it is coloured yellow. Yellow. Maybe The Punisher fires harmless custard bullets? Maybe the people he kills are aliens? Maybe Kevin Tinsley needs biology lessons? Maybe Marvel don’t give a chuff? Which, y’know, is their prerogative and all but this costs $15.99 and I don’t think it’s whiny for someone handing over that amount of cash to expect a decent product in return. I hear your TPBs don’t sell so well, Marvel? Maybe that’s why.

Despite all that it is still a sound piece of hugely testicular entertainment which does its job well due to the professionalism of Dixon, Buscema et al. but the fact that it’s such a cheapjack package makes it only EH! If, however, you like John Buscema, daft violence and got it for a fiver it’s really GOOD!

And that’s it from me and now...back to the COMICS!

Backwards Lap: Capsule Reviews from Jeff

Yes, dammit.  I am currently committed to this capsule review thing, if only because it forces Hibbs and Graeme to also write reviews and my WASPy upbringing inherently enjoys guilting people into stuff. After the jump: comics from last week, last year, and a very cool fan letter.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #169-173:  Still pretty much a mixed bag for me, but I do love how loose story plotting becomes during this period:  issue #169, for example, teases J. Jonah Jameson showing pictures proving that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but that's barely more than three pages of the story and the rest has Spidey beating the crap out of people he encounters essentially at random.  #172 is the debut of the Rocket Racer, but he gets only the opening four pages and then the rest of the book sets up the return of the Molten Man...and even then, interestingly enough, the cliffhanger is Spider-Man being drawn on by two armed security guards.  (The first page of #173 is Spider-Man getting shot by one of those cops and escaping, only to get jumped by bystanders, one of whom has been taking mail-order kung fu lessons.)

I know I carp on this again and again but: although none of that shit would pass muster in your basic Bob McKee workshop (or, as I recall, Dan Slott's advice sessions on Twitter), it's very fun in the right doses and it helps contribute to that "man, anything can happen" feeling...even when every issue opens and closes with a fight scene, and you have Molten Man coming back from the dead and then dying for the fifth or sixth time.

All that said, the highlight of this batch of issues for me was the following letter from issue #169:

Yup. It's that Frank Miller, approximately nineteen years old, saying everything it's taken me the last thirty-five years or so to try and articulate...and doing a better job of it.  I'm heartened but not surprised to find out Miller's a fan of Andru...but the mention of John Buscema is a little odd.  I wonder if that's why the two of them worked on that very odd issue of Daredevil years later?

Anyhoo, it's all pretty low-stakes stuff but I honestly think it's OK or better. The nostalgia factor bumps it up to a low GOOD for me, but I don't think I should really factor that in.

CRIMINAL: THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT #1: I really shouldn't read interviews.  If I hadn't perused Brubaker's interview with Spurgeon over at Comics Reporter, I think it'd be easier for me to see this as an excellent take on the "guy kills his cheating wife" crime tale with the metatextual stuff being a nice little bonus. But having read the interview, I walked into this expecting the metatextual to be meaty and satirical and a brilliant insight on nostalgia and it was...just kinda okay.  I'm hoping there will be a way that stuff goes a little further: it seems to me that Criminal has always been packaged in a nostalgic way -- Sean Phillips' amazing covers clearly reference those Gold Medal Books, among others -- and I think it might be uniquely suited to comment on more than the "wow, now we think of the past as somewhere safe but it was fucked up, too" element of nostalgia, but the "we even miss the fucked up stuff" element that is a little more distressing.  Is it a form of innocence to pine for something evil? Or is it a sign of corruption? I think this book is going to address this stuff (god, I really hope so), but the first issue didn't really deliver on that for me.  It's still GOOD, mind you -- well-written and lovely as hell, but I'd been primed for something great.

FLASHPOINT: BATMAN: KNIGHT OF VENGEANCE #1:  Thomas Wayne as Batman? Don't care. The Flashpoint version of The Joker? Don't care.  Art by Eduardo Risso, colored by Patricia Mulvihill?  I didn't care...until I saw it. Risso's art is just eye-wateringly good and in the sewer fight scene he has this neat trick of using the page turn to up the surprise by reversing the angle or tightening the focus (or, in some cases, both).  A fight between Batman and Killer Croc in the sewers isn't anything we haven't seen before but I don't think I've ever seen it quite like this. I wish the story had been more than your usual alt-universe blather, but danged if this didn't strike me as a GOOD stuff, anyway.

HELLBOY: THE FURY #1:  Also, in the "Holy Shit, Look At This Art!" category is this book, which somehow manages to be jaw-droppingly beautiful from the first page to the last.  Like Flashpoint: Batman, I don't really care know or care what's going on, but the art by Duncan Fegredo (and colors by the amazing Dave Stewart) and the pacing of Mignola's script miraculously negates all that.  I felt flashes of dread and wonder and, more than once, something like awe.  (I guess this'll sound obvious to you if you've read the issue, but reading it made me feel exactly the way I did when I first watched John Boorman's Excalibur, that same weird mix of the epic and the creepy.) I always feel weird giving books VERY GOOD ratings or higher based on nothing more than just the art but here we are.  Amazing stuff.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #623:  The art didn't fry my burger this time around but I'm still enjoying the story and Gillen's take on Loki.  In fact, the mix of classic myth and the story's own sensibilities reminds me of the stuff I'm reading in the Simonson Thor Omnibus.  I wish the art didn't look so wispy, but I think I'm gonna give this one a VERY GOOD, nonetheless.