Lancelot Link

(see what I did, there?)

Students in Indiana create a comic book to combat bullies. 'Cause nothing keeps the bullies away like being a comic-book geek.

FirstShowing.net just posted a pretty-good article which touches on what makes a good comic movie and what doesn't. I didn't like the Sin City movie but I agree that it's as if the graphic novels jumped up on screen and started talking to me.

The Toronto Star shows off their up-to-the-decade reportage with this May 8th piece on the Dark Tower comic.

Quick Thoughts on New Comics

Well, mostly new. Two of these are from last week's pull but they're still on the shelves.

Helmet of Fate: Zauriel #1 - DC (2007)


I've always had trouble reconciling the Christian mythos with the DC Universe. Apparently, so does Steve Gerber. It's like he can't decide whether to play it straight or to camp it up or to make a statement about faith, dogma and reality. There are elements of all these things in this issue and they add up to a diffuse mess. Peter Snejbjerg is a good artist but his work on this book isn't helping Gerber's script. It doesn't seem to fit with any of the attempted tones and, in fact, confuses things further. The horror elements did not come off as scary and the "people exploding messily" section had no emotional impact. I liked all the other Helmet books but this one felt empty.

X-Factor #16 - Marvel (2007)


This one deals with Christianity, too. Sort of. It has a tense, touching story about Madrox retrieving one of his duplicates. Also, Siryn and Monet blow up big chunks of Paris. You could read the Madrox part of this without having read the previous issue. Good stuff from Peter David and Pablo Raimondi

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #27 - DC (2007)


This title seems to have lost its focus since Supergirl showed up but it's still a fun read. This issue has more superpowered beings than you can shake a Durlan in the form of a stick at. Lots of stuff blows up and robots turn on their fleshy masters.

Newuniversal #4 - Marvel (2007)


Holy crap, this title is good. Warren Ellis is at his best when writing science fiction. This is an epic tale of people suddenly burdened with powers and technology beyond their current understanding. I know that's also the plot of countless superhero stories back to the beginning of time but this one leans heavily toward the SF end of the spectrum. They have let Ellis run with this storyline and it kicks ass.

This issue moved more slowly than I wanted it to, however. Some of the scenes could have been compressed. I have no complaints about the story itself. I am intrigued and entertained.

And Salvador Larroca's art! It is so beautiful and it fits the story so well that I can't say anything more. It's simply beautiful. Check it out below. Larroca's just painting a bedroom there. A goddamn bedroom! And it's one of the finest pages I've ever seen in a comic book.

3 X-Men Covers of Yore

That's right, I said "yore". I'm gonna go all "I Love the '80s" on you and talk about three nearly-consecutive Uncanny X-Men covers from 1981. I don't have much in the way of commentary other than to say that when I saw each of these covers on the stand back in the day I said, "Holy Crap! What's gonna happen in there?" I then probably put my velcro wallet in my parachute pants and adjusted the epaulets on my Members Only jacket because, y'know, it was the '80s.

Each of these issues lived up to what was on its cover. The "Everybody Dies" one followed one of the most famous X-Men covers ever and had a badass story. The Kitty vs. Alien was thrilling and the Everybody vs. Doom was a study in why you don't go up against a smart, ruthless zillionaire. Also, Storm totally got turned into a statue and she made this super hurricane and it blew up Latveria!

Enjoy the covers. They did what covers were meant to do.

Linkin' Park

Kevin Church has reminded me of The Comics Curmudgeon's existence. I had the site in the sidebar for a long time but he must have moved. Glad to have it back on board. Now I have some catching up to do.

I added Bill's House O' Comics to the list a while back but forgot to mention it here. Sorry, Bill. This image (scroll down) from his site reminds me how much I Want Forge's House!!!

Enter TangognaT's Super Happy Fun Manga Giveaway!

Heidi Meeley lays down the Comic-Customer-Service Manifesto! Preach it! The discussion in the comments is good, too.

And now, a totally rad picture of Blastarr:

Blogging The Crisis #1

First off, Crisis #1 has a hell of a cover. Click on the image above to see an enlarged version. That's awesome. I use "awesome" in the sense of "actually awe inspiring". I mean, look at that! You've got a sampling of 1985's finest super-beings floating around The Earth as it gets TORN ASUNDER BY ENORMOUS PINK LIGHTNING BOLTS!

But wait! It's not just one Earth. It's, like, a zillion of them! Holy monkeys! Those Earths just go on forever (one might even say, "infinitely") and they're all getting the crap kicked out of them.

The foldout cover has nice design. You've got Harbinger in one corner and cosmic sad sack Pariah in the other. In the middle youve got some of the most powerful beings in the multiverse being tossed around like leaves in a hurricane. This cover lets you know that DC's not pussyfooting around.

The first few pages live up to the cover's promise. After a "First, The Multiverse Cooled" beginning Wolfman starts right in on wiping out huge swaths of it. In fact, it looks like everything's being erased. As if each universe is part of a comic book or something and the Great Artist is rubbing it out bit by bit. I bet no one has ever pointed that out before. I am a genius.

Then there's a nice scene where the Luthor of Earth-3 sends his son off in a spaceship before everything's destroyed. See, Earth-3 is where the Crime Syndicate live and they're evil versions of the Justice League. So, since everything's wacky, Luthor is the only superhero on the planet and he sends his son away just like... you get the picture. Anyway, it's actually quite well-written and touching interspersed as it is with images of the Bizarro League trying to save the world they have kept under their bootheels all this time.

Next we meet Lyla who is about to undergo a transformation sequence which rivals Sailor Moon. She turns into Harbinger who has the ability to split herself into many copies each of which is able to travel through space and time. Handy! The Monitor (who is just a shadowy figure and a voice at this point) sends her all over the multiverse to get the people he needs to help him save the few earths that are left.

So, where's the first place she goes on her recruitment trip?

Gorilla City

That's right! Talking gorillas, baby! If I had the power to go anywhere I'd hit the enlightened apes first, too. They are shown to be wiser than man. For example, King Solovar sentences a convicted murderer-gorilla not to death (as the barbaric men would do) but to "convesion". I don't know what "conversion" involves but it sounds about as scary as death, to me.

Anyway, Harbinger freaks out the gorillas and grabs the simian monarch while one of her replicants goes to the 31st century to pick up Dawnstar of the Legion of Super-Heroes in a place called Suicide Slum. Cheery! Also collected are Firebrand from 1942, Psycho Pirate from the nuthouse and Blue Beetle from Charlton Comics.

Some creepy-ass shadow creature infects one of Harbinger's replicants right before she collects Arion who looks like one lonely dude. He's pretty much just wandering around the Ice Age casting spells and stuff. Anyway, the shadow thing can't be good. Mark my words.

Speaking of bad omens, Harbinger uses Psycho Pirate (man, I can't express the pleasure I get just from typing "Psycho Pirate") to turn Killer Frost from Firestorm's deadliest enemy into his love slave. Morally questionable!! And she had to browbeat Psycho Pirate into it. I guess Monitor's philosophy is that to save the multiverse you've gotta break a few wills.

There's a beautifully-drawn one-page interlude during which The Monitor drops a little bombshell: Lyla's gonna kill him. So, he probably knows about the little shadow thing back in the Ice Age. I'm sure it's all going to work out fine.

The next scene is the kind of thing people read these big crossover events for. Lots of superheroes who aren't supposed to be together all in the same place. We've got all of the ones mentioned above along with Psimon the telepathic asshole, Dr. Polaris the magnetic asshole, Geoforce, Cyborg, John Stewart, and Obsidian. Oh, and the old, fat Superman. I know all their names because this is a comic book and they spend the entire two-page spread calling each other by name or thinking about themselves in the third person.

So, everyone gets to wander around a bit before they are attacked by a pile of those shadow guys. They discover that they can't do jack against them. My favorite line from Superman: "Punching them doesn't stop them!" Dawnstar, at one point, is shocked, SHOCKED! to discover that King Solovar is a talking gorilla. I've read a lot of Legion of Super-Heroes and I'm pretty sure they've got whole planets full of sentient refrigerators so I call bullshit on her freaking out about a super-intelligent ape.

Monitor shows up and dispels the shadow guys with a blast of light (their natural enemy) and then tells the assembled superheroes that the end is Extremely Fucking Nigh.

And that's the end of issue #1. Damn good start. It establishes the events, kills billions of people and lets us know the stakes are unbelievably high. Nice stuff.

See also: The pulse-pounding Introduction

(Too much) Fun with action figures!

swampfan87 has already blogged about this (scroll down a bit) but I am compelled to post yet another picture from the shapeshifting experiment:



Um...

More pictures at Chris Karath's blog (if you dare).

A little bit of Helmet, a whole lotta Fate

It turns out that despite its title Helmet of Fate isn't porn. Who knew?

DC's launching a new Dr. Fate monthly and his helmet is zinging around the DC Universe looking for a head to land on. This "event" is a series of one-shots featuring many of the Universe's magic-wielding people as they come in contact with the helmet.

I am a sucker for DC's old-school magic characters. This is one of the reasons I liked Morrison's Zatanna so much. Dr. Fate is among my favorites so I picked up three of the titles:

Sargon The Sorcerer #1 - DC (2007)


Nice work from Steve Niles (writing) and Scott Hampton (arting). There's nothing senses-shattering, here but it's a good story well told. The art and story mesh well. Much like Ibis below, this is an origin story. The original Sargon's grandson takes on the mantle and gets a spiffy new character design for his troubles. A good read with the best final page (in terms of art as well as writing) I have seen in a long time.

Black Alice #1 - DC (2007)


This one has my favorite cover. No, that's not Frazer Irving's work it's Duncan Rouleau's. The character design for Alice is very Klarion-like but she's a goth chick so that works. Alice has the power to steal (or copy) magic from other magicians and use it to her own ends. The Helmet shows up and teaches her a lesson. Good story, good characters and Gail Simone. WooHoo!

Ibis the Invincible - DC (2007)


Ibis was the weakest of the three but it was still enjoyable. The main character is Danny Khalifa, an Egyptian-American teenager who keeps getting the crap kicked out of him by some freelance Homeland Security officers in the form of high-school bullies. It's another origin story but not as well done as Sargon. It was written by Tad Williams whose novels I have enjoyed. The writing's not actually weak, it just comes in third when it's up against the others I bought.

The art by Phil Winslade bothered me at first but once he started drawing Egyptian gods he really kicked ass. If you need a huge, tired, smartass baboon deity in your comic, Winslade's your man!

I'm a hard sell when it comes to origin stories where the protagonist has to learn everything as he goes and he's all "Woah! Yikes! I'm in over my head, dude!" Therefore, I am being harder on thiis than I otherwise would have. Also, I was hoping to learn more about the original Ibis since he's one of the magic guys I haven't seen much.

Last criticism: This story suffers from Too Many Words. Comics are a visual medium. You don't have to literally write everything out. Even Kevin Smith figured that out eventually.

Having said all that, this issue does everything a one-shot should. It tells an interesting, self-contained story and it ties up all of the loose ends.

Plus, big baboon god!

The Brave and the Bold #1 - DC (2007)

Hooboy! A superhero comic. With superheroes doing superhero stuff. I like Mark Waid and George Pérez which is good because they are the real team-up, here. The Brave and the Bold is a resurrection of one of DC's biggest hits. It was best known as a team-up title which introduced lots of new characters. More information can be found here. WARNING: The preceding link goes to Wikipedia so by the time you click on it the article may have been replaced by Alan Greenspan porn or something.

Pérez's art is spectacular in this issue. It's easy not to notice Pérez's stuff because his style is (to me) What Comics Look Like. People throw around the phrase "visual storytelling" a lot (well, people like me) but this issue is a textbook example of how it should be done. Pérez uses the whole damn page to convey the information. He overlaps panels and puts stuff in the gutters. It's artistic without being distracting.

Waid's script is excellent, as well. Batman and the Green Lantern are doing the things I read comics to see those characters doing. Each one gets to shine and the fact that they've known each other for a long time really comes through. Also, their banter during a fight for their lives says a lot about them.

I won't go into the story in great detail other than to say that there are some aliens involved in a murder mystery and it's off to a great start. The next issue has Green Lantern on his way to a planet called Ventura. Aren't Mike and Dorian from there? They'd better watch out.

Free Beer Tomorrow

I'm slowly making it through my latest (big) haul of comics. I've got some stuff to say about them but until that happens enjoy these piping-hot links.

New Hampshire Magazine interviews Jodi Picoult about her Wonder Woman run. It's a good interview when they let her talk and once they get past "Why in the world are you writing a comic book? You have so much to do."

The lovely and talented Comics Should Be Good continues its Comic-Book Urban Legends series with information about Namor, The FF and T.M. Maple

NBC Universal and Virgin say, "Hey, that Heroes sure is popular with the hepcat set. Let's make a bunch of pilot pitches comic books and see what happens." Yeah, copying the Latest Big Thing worked so well for those volcano movies. And the asteroid movies.

Heroes is popular because its well-written and cool not because it has people with kewl powerz. It's possible that these comics could yield something just as good but if the story's not there we just get another Matrix III.

Here's the last line from the NBC/Virgin story:

"Sci fi is a very underserved niche in comic books. There are plenty of superhero [books] and a thriving horror business. But there isn't a strong publisher focused on the sci fi genre."

That's pretty much true. There's Sci-fi stuff around but no imprint dedicated to it. I'm interested to see what comes of this. People like Warren Ellis, Brian Wood and Alan Moore write excellent SF. Maybe this thing will produce more like that.

Freaky Friday

Headed to a cocktail party this weekend? Impress your friends with your knowledge of the Korean comic scene.

Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times blows the lid off wacky super-heroes of the past. He also reveals that there wasn't a great deal of continuity control back in the day. My, I did not know that.

For your viewing pleasure: Stills from the Spider-Man 3 game.

Gone and Forgotten brings us a blow-by-blow review of Super Boxers. Spoiler Alert: It's about "boxers" and they're "super".


And because I love you, here's a snow sculpture of Super-Grover:

Linkin' Like A Sausage Factory

Added to the sidebar: Let's You And Him Fight

This post from Laura Gjovaag talks about Rick Olney who is the kind of person who would show up on Bullshit right before Penn Jilette would say, "And then there's this asshole".
More details on Unscrewed's Home Page.

In other news: Christ! What the hell is up with this cover?

Heroes for Hire #7 - Marvel (2007)

I'm gonna get all "reviewery" in a minute but first I want to say a couple of things:

DOOMBOT!

HEADMEN!

SHANG CHI!

If someone had asked me for a list of things I wanted to see in a comic book at the same time, well, I would have said Monica Rambeau, Machine Man and Boom Boom. But if someone had asked me what else I'd like to see in a comic book I would have listed the three things with the exclamation points above.

Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray are rapidly becoming my favorite writing team. They're doing Jonah Hex now, too. Seeing The Headmen at the end of issue #6 made me happier than anything in comics since Thor's unfettered might attack back in Secret Wars.

For those of you with social lives, The Headmen are evil science geniuses who are so evil and science-y that they have all replaced their bodies or heads with other things. Seriously. They consist of:

1. A woman with the body of a porn star and a head made out of one of those reflective balls people put in their gardens

2. Professor Gorilla-For-A-Body

3. Chondu The Mystic (who will put his head on anything)

4. A guy whose skeleton is too small for the rest of his body. OK, he didn't do anything with his head but that's because they couldn't figure out how to work with his little, tiny skull.

And these people are supposed to be intimidating. Well, I guess they are intimidating in an "I will do anything for world domination including cut off my own head" sort of way but they were just asking to be put in a humor title. Ellis was busy finding new, horrible things to do with MODOK so Gray & Palmiotti grabbed The Headmen and put them up against Humbug. Yes, the guy who can control roaches and stuff. This shit just writes itself!

There's another story involving Man-Ape, The Grim Reaper and Grindhouse which yielded the following line:

"We're villains...we don't roll over on each other like Captain America and Iron Man."

Ohh! Burn! Man-Ape vs. Mark Millar! Flawless Victory!

The art is nearly up to the writing on this issue. Alvaro Rio's pencils are spot on but the inking was better in #6. The credits list the inkers for #7 as "Tom Palmer & Terry Pallot" whereas #6 was inked by "Scott Koblish with Tom Palmer". There's some quality of the inking in this issue which is not as good as it was in the last; things look flatter. It didn't knock me out of the story or anything but I noticed it and it was a minor speedbump. The action scenes are well done and the "visual storytelling" (as the kids call it) is effective.

This one stays in my hold box. It's fun, cool and well done.

Nextwave #12 - Marvel (2007)

It says something about the current state of Marvel that the titles I like the most are the ones which make fun of current events. Nextwave doesn't just make fun of Marvel continuity it takes it into the alley and puts a bullet through its neck. You know all that stuff from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe that made you slightly insane when you read it? Warren Ellis takes all of that, throws it in a blender and gives it a bottle of tequila. Then he makes it fight all the other weird stuff. He made Forbush Man sinister, for God's sake!

Stuart Immonen. Damn. His art is always good but he knocks this out of the park. He doesn't just draw Nextwave he designs it. Check out this page. Immonen (bless his li'l Canadian heart) is the perfect choice for Ellis's fucked-up script. The action and character design both have the right combination of cool and wacky. There is no disconnect between word and picture here and that's the highest praise I can give to a creative team.

This is the last issue of the run but there are solid rumors that Nextwave will live on as several miniseries. It ends the way it began: with explosions and expletives and other things that begin with "ex". The first trade is out and the last six issues should end up between two covers in the near future. If you didn't read the singles on this (shame on you!) pick up the trades. Unless you're, y'know, allergic to fun.

New Comic Day Links

Jeff Wikstrom reads the daily newspaper comics so you don't have to! Here are some of his comments. But wait, here are some more: Click! Click, I tell you!


Mark Fossen says goodbye. Mark's blog is one of my favorites. If you haven't read it before take a trip through his archives.

I just found out about John Seavey's Fraggmented site. A couple of weeks ago he talked about Jonah Hex (one of my favorite characters in any medium) in his "Storytelling Engines" series.

Oh, and my FLCS was shorted on the last issue of Nextwave. If it's not waiting for me tonight I shall become rather cross. I may need herbal tea and a great deal of cushions to soothe my nerves.

Blogging the Crisis Introduction

David Plotz's Blogging The Bible has inspired me to give the same treatment to some of comicdom's holy texts. I'm going to start with Crisis On Infinite Earths.

A little background: Crisis came out when I was 15. I was reading comics heavily at the time but it was nearly all Marvel. Therefore, I was entirely unaware of the series when it was originally published. I didn't start reading mainstream DC regularly until Byrne's Superman revamp. I consider myself to be a C-student of DC continuity. I know the broad strokes but I couldn't tell you everyone who's ever been in the JLA. I have an embarassing amount of information in my head about the Green Lantern Corps but I am an ignoramus when it comes to Haunted Tank or The Crime Syndicate.

This will be my first time reading Crisis even though I know the general storyline. It's kind of hard to hang around other comic geeks without learning about Crisis through osmosis. I'm going in with no preconceptions. I have heard the series called everything from "masterpiece" to "clusterfuck" so I think it's time to form my own opinion.

And to inflict it upon you.

I'll do one post per issue. I've got the 1998 trade-paperback edition and for this post I'll talk about Marv Wolfman's Introduction:

Marv starts out by giving us a little history on himself. Like most comic creators, Marv started out as a fan and he tells a story about a very Monitor-like character he dreamed up as a kid. His excitement about getting to write the story that had been in his head is obvious even 13 years after the fact. He heaps well-deserved praise on George Pérez and then he goes into their motivations for the project and whether they achieved them. His opinion: Pretty much. Well, it got at least one new reader for DC. I didn't even know about Crisis but the reset on the DC Universe got me to pick up some of their titles (see Byrne's Superman, above).

Also, he says something I want to highlight:

"In many ways, I fear, the annual stunt has taken over comics publishing. If it isn't big, if heroes don't die, if worlds don't change, then, many feel the stories aren't worth reading."

A-freaking-men! Wolfman wrote that in 1998! I'll bet he's still saying it. Even louder. This whole Civil War/Identity Crisis thing is like what Hollywood does when a movie makes a surprising amount of money. They keep making it again and again but each generation is weaker than the one before it.

Wolfman then goes on to address the "Why did you kill X?" questions he gets every time he leaves the house. His answer: "Lay off! We didn't kill that many specific characters. We had good story and continuity reasons for the ones we did kill." Of course, he said it more politely than that. Marv's that kinda guy.

One last thing: Wolfman decided not to kill any character who had been created before he was born. Still that left him with a bunch of opportunities to cull the herd. I wonder if he had a hit list of characters he hated like all those lame-ass villains Scourge killed back in the day.

(Dr.) Strange things are afoot

Happy Seventh Blogday to Neilalien!

Spirits In The Material World

There are a few things in this report from NYCC that do not fill me with hope regarding the proposed Spirit movie. Chief among them: Frank Miller's involvement. I am really enjoying Darwyn Cook's comic and I adore Eisner's work but it looks like they might Sin City-ize this film and that would not be a good thing. Denny Colt does not need to be played by Bruce Willis.

Although the possibility of an animated version makes me feel a bit better.

One more thing

Mike Richardson-Bryan reveals Batman's Five Stages of Grief

Brad Pitt to play Owly (That can't be right)

I loves me some Owly. Owly for president! Andy Runton talks about the li'l feller.



"Make your own comic" contest.

This article about Wondercon has a nice bit in the middle about Al Feldstein, the editor of MAD

Not entirely comics-related but nearly so: Straczynski develops "World War Z for Brad Pitt.

CBR has a fairly long piece about DC's Minx line.

Civil War is teh suk

Jim Roeg actually read all the Civil War issues! Not only that, he wrote an excellent essay about them which echoes (and expands upon) my thoughts about Mark Millar's writing.