Stay classy, San Diego

Monday finality:

I expect this will be the final parroting of other sites' stories here, now that the con is over and all. But how about this: Neil Gaiman is writing Batman? Da fug? Looks like it's a story called "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?", and obvious homage to Alan Moore's "Whatever Happenend to the Man of Tomorrow?". Andy Kubert on art, so it will probably look like crap. This seems like small potatoes for Gaiman; he's got the literary respectability, so he shouldn't need to bother with lame superheroics. But maybe he had a story he really needed to tell. Me, I haven't been impressed with his recent comics work (although I do love Sandman and pretty much all of his novels), so I doubt I'll bother with it. But who knows, maybe he'll pull something great out of his ass. At least he's probably being paid a pretty penny for it.

Some slightly interesting stuff from the Fables panel: another standalone graphic novel called Fables: Peter and Max, about Peter Piper and the Pied Piper (who are brothers, of course). Illustrated by Steve Leialoha, who I've not really been a fan of on Fables art (I believe he illustrated the first volume, which is the weakest one by a very wide margin). We'll see how it turns out. There's also a spy-themed Cinderalla miniseries, written by novelist Chris Roberson, and a Fables/Jack of Fables crossover called The Literals, which, following the style of superhero comics, also has tie-in issues in both series. I don't know if that's the best idea, but whatever.

Hey, it's the cover of the next volume of Scott Pilgrim!



Supposedly, there was an Oni Press panel in which this book was discussed, but I can't find anything about it on any of the major news sites, so any other news which was announced can go unremarked upon by me.

Apparently Scholastic is doing at least one more volume of Bone collections (colorizations?) after finished volume 9. I assume this would include Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails and Rose, unless there is anything else that I'm not aware of.

Okay, I think that's enough of my blither-blather. I doubt I'll bother doing any more of this sort of "news" writing, since nobody comes here to find breaking stories (at least, I hope they don't). Outside of a couple interesting bits (Darwyn Cooke's Parker books, Viz's Urasawa licenses), there just isn't that much for me to talk about, other than the fact that I wish I could be there. And from the conventions that I've been to, I'm more interested in prowling around artists' tables and meeting creators than hearing company heads inform everybody how excited they are about some upcoming crossover. It's fun to attend a panel and hear a creator talk about their work, but reports on news sites are pretty boring, with factual descriptions of what transpired. "Brian Bendis said that he really likes working with Khoi Pham." "A fan asked what Jeph Loeb's favorite color is, and he sarcastically said 'chartreuse.'" That sort of thing can be enjoyable if you're sitting in the audience, but reading about it is generally pretty damn lame. So in the future, screw it. I can mention interesting news at the top of whatever my next post is, if I feel like it, and I'll limit most convention discussions to ones that I attend. Take that, apathy!

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Sunday junk:

There's some interesting stuff from IDW's panel, but nothing that makes me sit up and cheer or anything. They lead off with lots of talk about zombies and vampires (and Ben Templesmith's Welcome to Huxford, which I'm actually looking forward to reading), but then drop some offbeat news, like the collection of a Spanish strip from the 80s called Torpedo, which, from what little information I can dig up on the web, was drawn by Jordi Bernet. There's one or two other notable things, but I'm most interested in Ben Templesmith's The Presidents of the United States, which should make for an interesting comparison to Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey's forthcoming (someday) Action Presidents! Templesmith says he wants to spotlight some of the lesser-known presidents, but look at the sample image:



Yeah, nobody knows about that guy.

Looks like I might actually be interested in a comic from Devil's Due, now that they're going to be releasing books from French publisher Humanoids, including finally finishing the John Cassaday-illustrated I Am Legion. I regret missing out on most of the DC imports of Humanoids books from a few years ago, but that was when I was just getting back into reading comics regularly, and I was less adventurous then. So now I'll hopefully have the chance to check these out.

Here's a summary of Chip Kidd's panel about his Bat-Manga book, with a couple slideshow images. I'm looking forward to checking that one out.

For more stuff about manga, ComiPress has a list of announced licenses, many of which might be interesting, but it's hard to tell until we learn more information. Viz's Shojo Beat panel has some interesting info (I'll have to try to check out the VizBig edition of Fushigi Yuugi, and Blank Slate sounds cool), but maybe only for shojo junkies like me.

For an example of Newsarama's Eisner-winning journalism, check out this interview with Valerie D'Orazio about her upcoming Cloak & Dagger miniseries, in which they mention the art team, but never state who they are. Very helpful guys. I think I'll start apologizing when people offer me congratulations for the award.
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Saturday things:

Another example of Vertigo kind of reaching: a new Haunted Tank series, set in Iraq. What's next, a revival of Joe Simon's Green Team, set among the high-stakes world of commodities trading? Hey, I should pitch that to Karen Berger.

Damn, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba are all over the place lately; they've got a new series called Day Tripper coming out from Vertigo. Other news from the Vertigo panel: Dark Entries, the non-Azzarello Vertigo Crime book, will feature John Constantine (wow, they're really going for something new and different there). After Seaguy 2: Slaves of Mickey Eye, Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart are doing Seaguy 3: Seaguy Eternal (awesome news!). Another Morrison series, War Cop, will be coming out at some point, illustrated by Sean Murphy (I might be one of the last people to know about this).

Eh, I could probably find some other stuff to talk about (like the Eisner award winners; I've already got one congratulations for Newsarama's win), but screw it, I'm tired. And this is all ending up kind of boring anyway. We'll see if I can muster the interest to talk about anything else.
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Friday updates:

I don't know If I'll bother with this, but it's at least kind of interesting: Marvel and Stephen King are doing some sort of comics/video/internet/cell phone thing, with art by Alex Maleev that is presented in "pan and scan" format with voiceovers and whatnot. Weird. Sounds kind of dumb, actually, but it's notable that they are trying to tell stories using a new medium. Maybe I'll try to check it out at some point, although I don't have a cell phone that can do that sort of thing.

I don't know why I neglected to mention the Dark Horse horror panel yesterday, maybe because nothing really jumped out at me as especially noteworthy, but there are some interesting tidbits, like the fact that Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba will be illustrating an upcoming BPRD miniseries. That's pretty cool.

Here's some more information about that David Mack adaptation of Philip K. Dick's "The Electric Ant". It sound's pretty cool; I'll be interested to see how well Mack can adapt Dick's style to comics. Lord knows it should be better than the "make it an action movie!" approach Hollywood has usually used. And check out the nice artwork:



Info about the upcoming collection and revival of Dean Motter's Mister X. I've never read that series, but I probably should try it out. It looks cool.

Manga news! CMX has acquired the interesting-sounding titles Genghis Khan and March on Earth. Del Rey has a series called Yokai Doctor, which is a good title, at least. They also announced some cool-sounding non-manga books, like In the Flesh, a story collection by Israeli artist Koren Shadmi, and Life with Dr. Dangerous, by Paul Hornschemier.

More in-depth stuff about the new Ennis/Dillon Punisher miniseries, which sees the return of Ma Gnucci, the mob boss who was dismembered by a polar bear and seemingly burnt to death back in their original storyline. This kind of reeks of trying to squeeze too much lemonade out of a particularly well-worn lemon (that doesn't even make sense). But Ennis should be able to at least make it pretty funny, I imagine.

God, news has to just trickle out in annoyingly minute details, doesn't it? Here's a very slight update on the Vertigo Crime imprint, revealing that the comics will be in graphic novel format, black and white, about 200 pages long. And you can find out the titles of the actual books, for all that good that will do.

There's one worthwhile item in this post about the Image panel, and that's that Darwyn Cooke will be writing and drawing Madman Atomic Comics #14. There, I saved you the trouble of reading through the rest of the dreck. Actually, there's one or two mentions of Invincible and The Walking Dead, and I know those aren't terrible, so I suppose you could read it if you're a Robert Kirkman fan.

Hey, how about this? Viz announced that they finally licensed Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and Pluto, both of which should be coming out in the US in February. Awesome. That might be the best Comicon news I've heard yet.
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Because I feel like it, I'll try to do a roundup of news and whatnot from San Diego as the convention continues. Looking back at the post I did last year, it's interesting to see that many of the announcements didn't bear fruition until right around now, a year later. So let's see what's in store for mid-2009:

The first big news is pretty awesome: Darwyn Cooke will be adapting Richard Stark's Parker novels into a series of graphic novels for IDW. Suh-weet. I'm all over that. I love Cooke's art, and it will be great to see him doing some more serious, adult work.

Boom! Studios has a new deal with Disney/Pixar to do stories spinning off from their movies (and also The Muppet Show. Weird). I'm surprised there hasn't already been an Incredibles comic book, since that's obvious, but their other stuff should lend itself to the medium as well. We'll see how it goes. Here's the original story, and here's an interview with editor Paul Morrisey. And an interview with Boom! EIC Mark Waid, who mentions that Roger Langridge might be involved with the Muppets book.

Vertigo, which seems to be flailing around for some sort of identity, is launching a new imprint, Vertigo Crime. Starting sometime next year, the first two books will be written by Brian Azzarello (cool!) and Ian Rankin (who?). Why couldn't these have been plain old Vertigo series? Huh.

CBR has an interview with Gerard Way, mostly talking about the upcoming second volume of The Umbrella Academy. There are some interesting tidbits of information, and some boring talk about a movie adaptation (it works best as comics; why worry about adapting it to film? Oh, right, money). If you're a fan (of the comic, or his band, you weirdos), check it out.

Looks like that's all for now, but I'm sure I'll have more to add soon.
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I don't know if this is really comics news, but Virgin is doing some sort of multimedia project with Grant Morrison called MBX, based on the Indian epic Mahabharata. It includes animation and video games, but who knows if there will be any comics involved. If it's anything like Morrison's awesome Vimanarama, I'll be glad to check it out.

Here's an interview with Guy Davis about The Marquis. I've never read that series, even though I dig Davis's art. I'll have to try to check it out sometime.

More to come soon, I'm sure. I'll eventually start sticking updates at the top of the post, but it's still too small and too new for that.
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Lots of boring news about the X-Men and Green Lanterns and crap like that. Meh. But I was interested to see a new Agents of Atlas series from Jeff Parker and some as-yet-unnamed artist. Here's a kind of in-depth article about it. I don't know if I'll want to read it, what with my current antipathy toward superheroics, but I'm definitely more interested in that than whatever's going on with Wolverine.

Other possible stuff of interest from Marvel: a David Mack-drawn adaptation of Philip K. Dick's "Electric Ant" (with Paul Pope on covers!), and Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon doing a six-issue weekly Punisher: War Zone miniseries, which is supposed to be more along the lines of their humorous, satirical Punisher work, rather than the more adult MAX series.

The Spirit: Oh, now it gets good

Man, I've got plenty of books to talk about, but I'm going to go ahead and waste a post looking at a single issue of a series. But first, I'll link to my review of The Evil Dead #1 over at Comics Bulletin (formerly Silver Bullet Comics). I also contributed to a "Sunday Slugfest" of Atomic Robo #4, but that doesn't appear to be up yet. I'll link to it when it goes up; I wrote some other stuff for them today, so I should have some other stuff to point out in the next few days. Anyway, here's my latest diversion:

The Spirit #12 By Darwyn Cooke



I gotta say, while I've enjoyed Darwyn Cooke's run on The Spirit, it hasn't blown me away to the point where I went into mourning when it was announced that he was leaving the title. Sure, the stories have been fun, and the art was very nice, but there was nothing that made me want to enshrine Cooke as Will Eisner's heir apparent. Until now, that is. This final issue of Cooke's run has been everything I hoped for, paying tribute to Eisner's stories and style while working on its own as a moving and exciting tale. It figures that Cooke is leaving now that he's finally shown what he can really do (not that I ever doubted him or anything).

But it's a hell of a send-off. This issue is an adaptation of the original two-part story that introduced the Spirit's lost love, Sand Saref, and it's a beautiful story, especially in the flashback sequences where Cooke emulates Eisner's sepia-toned art style of A Contract With God:



The cityscapes and rain-soaked imagery are pure Eisner, and in some places, Cooke even manages to replicate Eisner's character art:



As you can see, the page layouts are possibly a little more "modern" (or maybe just more Cooke-style) than Eisner usually used (not that Eisner was any slouch at ambitious layouts), but Cooke still managed to capture Eisner's unique style to the point that my breath caught in my throat as I was reading it. Damn. And hey, he even managed to draw water like Eisner did:



So overall, the issue is a good reworking of the story, using some of Cooke's characters (which may have been established before he got his hands on the character, but I wasn't familiar with them) in an organic way and really emphasizing the "lost love" aspect of the Spirit and Sand's relationship. One thing I have enjoyed about Cooke's run is the adult sensibility he brings to the stories; previous issues have seen regular violence and plenty of casual profanity, and this issue includes a fairly explicit sex scene (for a non-Vertigo DC comic, anyway):



But none of these things are gratuitous; Cooke takes the age and maturity of his intended readers for granted, and I like that. So now that his run is over with, I'm finally sad to see him go. We'll see if Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, and Mike Ploog can live up to what he started. I'm sure their run will be funny, but I'm hoping they'll put as much heart into it as Cooke did.

Final UPDATE! San Diego newseses

UPDATE: See the bottom of the post for the newest updates.

I was going to put this entry in its own post, but I figure there will continue to be more news and announcements from what is often referred to as the "nerd prom", so I'm dedicating this post to news out of the San Diego Comicon that I find interesting, starting off with:

A new Jeff Smith book! RASL is a crazy-sounding sci-fi story about a dimension-hopping art thief. Looks cool:



Looks like Top Shelf is putting out an omnibus of Marshal Law, which is cool, because that's an awesome series. It's a good look at early Kevin O'Neill artwork, if you only know him from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And a hilarious, violent, fun series too, with some great lampooning of superheroes.

UPDATE:

Darwyn Cooke is leaving The Spirit after issue #12. Bummer. Unless his replacement is somebody amazing, I think I'll be leaving it too.

Jon Favreau (who's directing the Iron Man movie) and Adi Granov are doing an Iron man limited series. It'll probably finish coming out sometime in 2010. Might be interesting, but if I read it, I'm sure I'll wait for the trade.

More news to come...
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UPDATE on 7/27:

CBR has a gallery of images from Brian Wood's upcoming Viking series from Vertigo, Northlanders. There's going to be a panel about the series later today, so there will be news and whatnot at that same link.

This one is pretty interesting: Dark Horse is launching a MySpace page called MySpace Dark Horse Presents, and it's kind of a new version of their anthology series, except it's free to read on the page. It's up now, and the first "issue" has a story called "Sugarshock" by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon, along with an Umbrella Academy story by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba. Cool. It'll be something to watch. You can read more info in this CBR article.

Viz announced a few new manga titles (I like the title of Monkey High), but their interesting news is that they've licensed the anime versions of both Nana and Honey & Clover. I don't know about Nana, but I've seen some of the H&C anime, and it's excellent.

There will probably be more news later today, so stay tuned (since I'm such a great source for comics news...).
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UPDATE 2 on 7/27:

Newsarama has a good interview with Cory Doctorow about IDW's upcoming series of comics adaptations of his short stories.

UPDATE 3 on 7/27:

Lots of news from Marvel, including a new ongoing Eternals series that's a sequel to the Neil Gaiman/John Romita Jr. miniseries. However, it's by Daniel and Charles Knauf, with whom I'm not familiar (apparently, they write Iron Man), and since I was kind of disappointed with the mini, I'll probably skip it.

Also from Marvel, Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos will be the new creative team on Runaways after Joss Whedon's six-issue arc. I'm not so sure about this, especially Ramos' art style, so I think I'll be dropping the book and possibly picking up a collection if I hear good things.

And the big news is the announcement of Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi as the new creative team on Astonishing X-Men after Joss Whedon and John Cassaday finish their run. Apparently, the title is going to change to Astonishing X-Men: Second Stage, and maybe starting with a new #1. I'm pretty leery of this prospect, since I don't know if I like Ellis on big mainstream books like this (although his Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Galactus books were pretty good), and while Bianchi can draw pretty, I don't know if his art style will work on a book like this at all. Plus, I'm sick of the X-Men and wish Ellis would do more stuff like Desolation Jones (I guess I should be happy with Black Summer and Doktor Sleepless...). Anyway, here's a picture:



Oh, crap, that's X-23 in that picture, isn't it? Well, I should probably assume I'm going to be skipping this then.
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I guess that's all for right now, but there might be more interesting stuff announced later (and tomorrow, and Sunday), so I'll keep adding to this post. I suppose I could have mentioned Mark Waid's new post as Editor in Chief of Boom! Studios, but whatever.
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UPDATE 4 on 7/27:

Vertigo is starting a new House of Mystery series, with Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges (writers of Jack of Fables) writing. Might be cool.

Also from Vertigo, Joshua Dysart is writing a new Unknown Soldier miniseries, and it will take place in Africa, dealing with the little-reported (in the United States) conflicts on the continent. Could be interesting.

Vertigo again: Jamie Delano is writing a Hellblazer graphic novel, with Jock providing art. I don't usually read Hellblazer, but I suppose I could read this.

Well, crap. I have very little interest in all this "Crisis" stuff that DC seems to have going on all the time, but apparently the so-called Final Crisis is going to be written by Grant Morrison (with art by J.G. Jones), ensuring that I will at least pay a little bit of attention to it. Not that everything Morrison touches is gold (see my upcoming review of Batman #666), but it could be really big and cool, in the manner of his JLA stories.

I don't know of this has much news, but CBR has a report from the Groo panel, and it's fun to read if you're a fan of that series. I wish I could have been there. Maybe the news about a Groo/Tarzan crossover is new; I don't know. I'll be glad to read the 25th anniversary special coming out next month.
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UPDATE on 7/28:

You can see the Eisner Award winners here. They all seem like pretty good choices, except that awful Batman/Spirit book written by Jeph Loeb (you can read my review here).

DC announced the titles of lots more Minx books. Some of them sound interesting, mostly due to the creators involved, which include Steve Rolston, Inaki Miranda, Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, David Hahn, and Rick Mays.

I don't know if this is new news, but I guess P. Craig Russell is adapting Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters into a comic. That seems weird, since it's already a sort of comic with Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations. I guess Russell is also adapting Gaiman's novel Coraline, which is also being made into a movie. Ah, I'm sure I'll read them both when they come out; I love Russell's art.

According to Bully, the second Spirit anthology issue (#13?) will feature contributions from Gail Simone, Michael Golden, and Jeff Smith.
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UPDATE 2 on 7/28:

Lots of interesting stuff from the Image panel, but what stood out for me was the anthology Pop Gun and Corey (Sharknife) Lewis's new Slimline series Pinapl.

Newsarama has an interesting interview with Christos Gage about his upcoming graphic novel The Lion of Rora from Oni, which he's co-writing with his wife, with Dean Trippe provided the art. That might be one to watch for.
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And I think that's everything of note for today. There was some talk about Marvel's thrice-monthly publishing plans for Spider-Man, with the most notable news being Dan Slott as one of the writers and Chris Bachalo as one of the artists. I probably still won't read it though. We'll see if anything else gets posted on any of the news sites, but it's possible that the flow of news is slowing down, so this might be the last update. I don't know if I'll do any more like these, but I thought it would be interesting to keep track of the news from the convention that I found notable. I'll probably post something about Wizard World Chicago next month, but that's only because I'm going to be there. Anyway, I'll hopefully get my replacement scanner on Monday, and then I can get back to the regular reviews.
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Okay, one last update (yeah, right): Blog@Newsarama showed the cover art for the Brian Wood/Ryan Kelly Minx book, The New York Four:


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Okay, hopefully this will be the last update (7/29):

Image is doing a revival of some Jack Kirby properties, Silver Star and Captain Victory. Looks like they'll be written by Erik Larsen (at least at first), so that doesn't excite me too much. We'll see who ends up doing the art. I doubt they'll be able to capture Kirby's energy (see Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters for an example of that sort of failure), but it might be interesting to see what they do.

DC had a Fables panel, and Newsarama's report doesn't really have any earth-shaking news, but it's an interesting read if you're a fan of the series (and its sister title, Jack of Fables). The biggest news is probably that the two titles will start to tie together a bit more, and that a sort of follow-up to 1001 Nights of Snowfall is being planned, although they really only mentioned vague details, saying that real news and a title won't be announced until next year's San Diego convention.

I figured I was going to skip this, but since I'm updating again, I suppose I'll mention it: manga creator team CLAMP is going to be doing a series for Dark Horse. I'm not really a fan of any of their series, but it is interesting news.

Not too much of interest from CBR's report about the Wildstorm panel, except the cover of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier:



Now we'll see if it actually comes out this year.

The new company Radical announced some interesting-sounding books, especially the ones by John Bolton and Bill Sienkiewicz.
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Okay, I think that's really the last update. All major news has been reported, so if I find out about anything else worth mentioning, I'll just put it in its own post. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to a more normal schedule tomorrow.

One word about new comics: SHAZAM!

But I'll get to that one later. Here's what I thought about what I bought this week:

Army@Love #5
By Rick Veitch



Man, this book is seriously nuts. I love it. I'm wondering if Veitch is going to be able to keep up the crazy satire (this issue, the army sponsors a concert in the middle of the war zone, and a mullah declares a fatwa against the band due to pressure from a rival record label; also, the "hot zone club" becomes official, with patches being handed out to soldiers who have sex in a battle zone, and an officer's personal problems are dealt with by having his wife sent to a secret prison) while keeping up with his large cast. I imagine he has plenty more planned, but I bet it would be easy to start shifting the focus to the characters rather than the satire. Here's hoping he can keep up the balance, giving us plenty of character moments while going all out with the corporate sponsorship jokes and stuff like that.
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Blackgas 2 #3 (of 3)
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Ryan Waterhouse



I only just noticed when checking the credits that the artwork in this issue was done by Ryan Waterhouse rather than Max Fiumara. That's probably not a very good sign, that I didn't even notice the change. Unfortunately, this is really not a very good comic. I liked the first miniseries, with a slightly different take on zombies, in that the disease brought out people's worst inner impulses, turning them into murderous, sex-crazed maniacs. This sequel miniseries mostly ignored that aspect, focusing on your standard zombie carnage. This issue ends up with the last surviving character wandering through New York, killing zombies or witnessing their nasty acts (like one zombie fucking a headless corpse) before the army drops a nuke on the city, which causes an earthquake and releases more of the titular black gas into the atmosphere, presumably dooming mankind. The end. Yawn. I dunno, maybe I'm just getting sick of zombies, so this sort of thing just doesn't interest me anymore, but this series seemed especially depressing and boring. Maybe, in the typical commentary that zombie stories inspire, Ellis is trying to say that there is no hope for humanity, and our worst impulses will doom us all. Did I mention that it was depressing?
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Cover Girl #3 (of 5)
Written by Andrew Cosby and Kevin Church
Art by Mateus Santolouco



Ah, now this is more like it; sexy girls, movie stars, and car chases! I'm really enjoying this series, although I have a few questions. First, was it an error when we get a page with the caption "three weeks ago", followed by a page captioned "two weeks ago", and then no caption on the next page? There's a shift in scene, and I was expecting a "now" caption or something. It was slightly confusing. Also, we get a scene of the bad guy threatening his girlfriend, the girl that Alex rescued in the first issue. I know we need a plot for the series, but wouldn't it make more sense for him to just kill the girlfriend and be done with the whole thing, rather than continue to make attempts on Alex's life? There does seem to be a terrorism plot afoot, so I'm sure more dastardly plans will ensue, but it seems he is unnecessarily risking men and resources trying to kill a guy that has probably forgotten about the incident. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't question the plot points of what is trying to be an action-movie-style story. And I don't want to make it sound like I'm not liking it; there's some great stuff, like Rachel threatening Alex with a gun whenever she wants to win an argument, Alex learning real fighting skills from his supposed "girlfriend", rather than the showy fighting that looks good on camera, and a fun car chase, with Alex stuck in the driver's seat as he and Rachel are being slammed from all sides by evil SUV's. There's plenty of good dialogue too, like Alex saying to the car, "Come on, baby, hold together!", with Rachel replying, "Don't call me baby!" I know, that's an old joke, but I liked it. I'm also liking Santolouco's art, which still isn't as good as Rafael Albuquerque's cover art, but it's getting close. So, it might be late to start reading the miniseries, but I definitely recommend reading the eventual collection. Unless the last two issues suck. Don't let me down, Church!
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Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #6 (of 6)
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Clayton Crain



Wow, two miniseries by two of my favorite writers ended this week, and I disliked both of them. Of course, I kind of hate Ghost Rider anyway, but I liked the Western premise of this series, and the first two or three issues were just interesting enough to make me want to get the next one, until I got to the point where I felt like I had to finish the story. But now that it's over, I'm left with a big shrug and a feeling of disappointment. Of course, Clayton Crain's murky art doesn't help win me over, but the story just wasn't worth the time (or money) I spent reading it. This final installment did have some interesting discussion of the nature of revenge (and the odd notion that Ghost Rider was some sort of African spirit, rather than a minion of the Christian devil), but really, not worth it. So anybody that was curious, unless you're a big Ghost Rider fan, or love Clayton Crain's art, steer clear of this comic.
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The Goon #19
By Eric Powell



Looks like Eric Powell is finally getting back to his regular story, after a sort of filler issue, the Goon Noir miniseries, and the Satan's Sodomy Baby one-shot. That might explain the "summarize the plot" nature of this issue, with its captions featuring the Goon's inner monologue, as he goes into a swamp to fight an octopus monster, leading to this awesome splash page:



Oh, hell yeah. That's some beautiful stuff there. We also get one of the comedy intros that Powell does every so often, this time lampooning Oprah's hawking of that bullshit The Secret (which I won't link to, because it offends me; you can Google it (or just read this issue) if you don't know about it and really must find out). Unfortunately, it's not as funny as these bits usually are, possibly because it goes on for a bit longer than necessary, but I'll get behind any attack on that idiocy. Anyway, it's a decent issue, and hopefully it signals a return to this book coming out on a regular basis. We do have the Chinatown graphic novel coming out in a couple months, so there's plenty of Powell madness to look forward to.
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The Programme #1 (of 12)
Written by Peter Milligan
Art by C.P. Smith



Wow, this book is crazy. I'm wondering if I should have waited for the trade, but oh well, I don't mind reading something this good on a monthly basis. The story has to do with a superhuman attack on U.S. troops in the Middle East (in a fictional country called Talibstan), which seems to awaken a man (probably also a superhuman) that originated from a Nazi genetics experiment. There are some jarring shifts in time and location, and some really cool art by C.P. Smith, who is helped immensely by colorist Jonny Rench:



I love the gritty texture the colors add to the art. The book has a really interesting, shadow-filled look, with occasional splashes of color, like the greenish explosion when the troops are attacked:



And I'm digging the political atmosphere Milligan is establishing here, with the United States caught in a stupid war in the Middle East, an overly religious and out-of-it President, and tons of state secrets and scandals. I'll be back for more next issue, and the ten after that. Don't let me down, Milligan!

By the way, I thought Jog described the symbolism much more elegantly than I ever could, so I wanted to link to his review.
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Repo #2 (of 5)
Written by Rick Spears
Art by Rob G.



Well, I gave this book one more issue to keep me reading, but I probably should have gone with me gut and dropped it after the first. Sure, some interesting concepts are introduced, like clones that are created for the purpose of harvesting their organs and the army of clones that has risen up to fight this practice, but the art continues to be bad and the humor continues to be stupid. Oddly, the cover looks nice, probably due to the nice coloring, but a version on that picture on the inside cover shows a good example of the ugly art and garish coloring in the interiors:



The story contains plenty of action and violence and such, but I'm still finding myself bored. So, Repo, consider yourself dropped.
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Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #4 (of 4)
By Jeff Smith



Well, this is one that I probably should have waited for a collection on, but it's still a super-fun story that I loved reading. This issue has the climactic fight, with Billy turning into a 100-foot-tall Captain Marvel and fighting Mr. Mind's giant robots:



And there's also this:



It's pretty awesome, and it even hints at a sequel, which I hope Jeff Smith gets to do someday. It's probably the best comic that came out last week, and I really encourage anyone and everyone to read a collected edition when it comes out. I feel like I should have more to say, but I guess "It's awesome; read it!" will have to suffice.
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The Spirit # 8
By Darwyn Cooke



And then we have Darwyn Cooke's regular dose of coolness, with the Spirit and Silk Satin stuck in a water tower trying to defuse a nuclear bomb. I love how Cooke gets to the meat of the plot by giving some exposition in the form of a news report which is finished in just a few panels on the first page. We get some good scenes, especially when Satin gets amnesia and the Spirit has to try to snap her out of it:



That plot actually sounds lame, but Cooke makes it fun. I think that's the appeal of the book for me: it's a good dose of fun comics each month, without being overly serious or dragging out an overly long story. And the nice art certainly doesn't hurt. If you haven't been reading it, I encourage you to give it a try. Each issue is self-contained, so you can pick any of them up and read them. Hopefully, Cooke will be able to keep this up for quite some time.
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Texas Strangers #2
Written by Antony Johnston and Dan Evans III
Art by Mario Boon



Well, I really wanted to like this series, but it's just not doing anything for me. Being aimed at kids, it's full of cartoony action and larger-than-life characters, but I dunno, I'm just not drawn in. Perhaps a good comparison would be cartoons like Ben 10, which are full of the adventure that kids like but don't really interest me.

Anyway, this issue continues where the last left off, with the Texas Strangers and our heroes fighting some bad guys atop a dynamite-filled chain of wagons, trying to stop it from blowing up a camp of Native Americans (who are elves in this series). It's some pretty good action that I thought was clear and easy to follow. Like I said, kids will probably enjoy this, and hopefully the people at Image will be able to get it into their hands, because I don't think many of the comic shop regulars will be too interested. We'll see what happens, but while I might watch the sales of the series with interest, I don't think I'll be buying it.
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And that's the week in comics. I've got more reviews to write (as always), so we'll see when I can get around to that. See you then!

Eff Cee Bee Dee

I'm late on this, but here are my thoughts on books I liked from Free Comic Book Day 2007. I didn't get the Peanuts book, which was too bad, and I suppose I could have read the Spider-Man book, but not getting that one is no big loss. But here's what I did like:

The Umbrella Academy
Written by Gerard Way
Art by Gabriel Ba



I was a bit skeptical about this, because who would expect a cool comic from the frontman of My Chemical Romance? But this was actually pretty fun, and it's sold me on the upcoming miniseries. Good job with this one, Dark Horse. The book is about a team of superheroes (or supernatural detective types, at least) who attend the titular school. Here's a scan of the title page, which gives a goofy description of each character that sounds like it was translated from Japanese (click to enlarge):



The story involves the team's discovery of the dead body of one of the members (which is odd, because she is also at the scene, alive) and their subsequent confrontation of the villainous Murder Magician, who is making a talk show appearance. It's a short story, which fits a free giveaway, but the dialogue and art are quite good. The whole thing reminds me of Matt Fraction's writing on Casanova, but that might just be because the art here is also by Gabriel Ba. Dave Stewart's colors really liven the art up though. Here's a good sample:



Awesome. And the writing is good too, with lines like, "The Murder Magician's hypnotized Lucifer Clark and his audience, and set a murderbot to 'careless brutality'". Lots of fun; I'll definitely be checking out the miniseries, whenever it shows up.

The book also has previews of Pantheon City and Zero Killer. The former is a futuristic tale by Ron Marz and Clement Suave. The art looks nice, but I'm not exactly a fan of Marz's writing, so I kind of doubt I'll pick it up. As for the latter, it's written by Arvid Nelson, who created Rex Libris, which I've never read but hear is really good. Art is by Matt Camp, and it seems nice enough. It's something about a post-apocalyptic New York overrun by weirdos, and the short story here doesn't really do anything for me.
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Comics Festival 2007



This is a sampler of various Canadian artists who (I assume) will all be attending or participating in the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Lots of nice pieces, including a couple Scott Pilgrim-related stories by Bryan Lee O'Malley, a nice story by Darwyn Cooke (who also contributed that awesome cover), an Apocalypstix short featuring art by Cameron Stewart, several pages of snow-related poetry by Hope Larson, a beefcake-laden sci-fi strip by J. Bone, and a "Monster Cops" one-pager by Chip Zdarsky. Cool stuff! There's other stuff too, but those were my favorites.
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The Train Was Bang On Time
By Eddie Campbell



This was one of the ones I wanted to get most, and now it has me really excited about Eddie Campbell's new book, The Black Diamond Detective Agency. This is an excerpt from that book, and it looks really nice, with color and everything. I had a bit of trouble following the story, but I'm hoping that won't be a problem with the full book. It involves the bombing of a train and the false(?) accusation of a man who ends up going on the run from the titular (I like that word, if you can't tell) detective agency. As for the art, it's very nice, of course. I was especially impressed with the double page spread of the explosion; I was tempted to scan it and show it here, but it works best as punctuation against the art on the pages surrounding it, with stark black lines on a bright red background. Instead, I'll show this image of the aftermath:



I love Eddie Campbell's art and writing, so I'm really stoked to read this in its entirety.
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Mickey Mouse
By Floyd Gottfredson



Before I got into superhero comics in my teenage years, I used to read Disney comics voraciously, especially those starring Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. But there was one story in an issue of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories that I really liked; it was a reprint of an old Mickey Mouse newspaper strip story, with Mickey discovering a floating island and fighting his nemesis Big Bad Pete for control of its scientific advances. The story was by Floyd Gottfredson, of course, and the fact that it has stuck with me is a testament to his skill. He wrote and illustrated the tales of Mickey Mouse back before all the sharp edges were filed off the character; these days Mickey doesn't really have a personality, but back then he was irascible and temperamental, seeming to pick fights at the drop of a hat. I would love to read a treasury edition of Gottfredson material, but stuff like this will have to suffice for now. In this story, Mickey invents a chemical that increases and reduces the size of plants. It also affects living things, enlarging a fly to the size of a cat and shrinking Mickey to the size of, um, a mouse. He ends up taking refuge in the pages of a book, and he ends up stepping right into the pictures and entering the world of Robin Hood. Hey, why not? (or, as Chris Sims might say, because Floyd Gottfredson, that's why). He ends up joining Robin Hood's band of merry men, robbing travelers and rescuing maidens (although nothing turns out like he expects it to), and it's all a bunch of goofy fun until it gets too intense for him and he has to leave. I love the crazy stuff that Gottfredson comes up with, like the scenes of Mickey fighting:





Or the way Pluto is freaked out by Mickey's antics:



We also get another story, about Mickey's rival for Minnie's affections, Mortimer. In one scene, Mortimer plays jokes on Mickey and makes him look like a fool. So Mickey bets him he can make Mortimer fall over without touching him:



Ah, a classic gag. Man, I need to look and see if this stuff is available in collected editions.
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So that's the stuff I liked. I also enjoyed the Nexus book, but that's because I've never read any Nexus, and it helped me get caught up. Now I might actually read the upcoming series. I got the Owly book for my wife, and she was pretty excited. I tried reading it, but man, it is just not my style. So that's pretty much it. I should be back tomorrow with other stuff to talk about. Stay tuned!

And now: New(ish) comics!

Yeah, I'm always late getting to these, but here's stuff I wanted to comment on from comics that came out last week:

DMZ #18
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Ricardo Burchielli and Nathan Fox



It seems Brian Wood isn't going to give us a breather between the last intense storyline and this new one. This is the first part of a new arc called "Friendly Fire", and it sees Matty leaving the DMZ to interview soldiers involved in the infamous "Day 204 Massacre", an incident in which a large number of civilians were killed. I think it was Joe Rice at Comics Should Be Good who posited that this seems to be a riff on Rashomon, in which we'll see conflicting accounts of the events from the point of view of different participants. That seems likely. In this issue, we hear from a U.S. Army soldier who describes his experiences in the war. The flashbacks are illustrated by Nathan Fox, who I've never heard of, but he seems to be channeling Paul Pope. Check out this shot of Stevens (the soldier) and a friend huffing paint before he went off to the army:



Excellent colors by Jeromy Cox in that scene. Everything seems so dark and drab, but the characters' whole heads seem to light up and almost catch on fire when they're breathing the fumes. Later we see some of the war from a ground-level view, and it's truly harrowing.



By the time the day of the "massacre" rolls around, Stevens is completely fucked up from stress, cold, and sickness (and possibly drugs), and he's hallucinating, seeing things like blood all over the ground:



Again, Cox makes the bright colors stand out against the drab background (which I didn't show; sorry). Incredible. So the worst possible thing happens, causing a huge setback for the U.S. forces. Of course, this is just the word of one guy, so we'll see what others have to say in future issues.

Once again, Wood really hits us where we live when depicting the consequences of war. If (or when, really) something like this happens in Iraq, we will think it's horrible, but not worry too much about it because it's half the world away and happening to foreigners that we don't relate to. But what if it happens on the streets of New York City, to Americans? It's horrifying to contemplate, and it knocks the wind out of you because that's what it's like for people in real war-torn countries. That's why I think this is such an important book, and one of the best ones currently coming out.
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The Spirit #5
By Darwyn Cooke



Ah, something light and fun to cheer me up! Darwyn Cooke makes The Spirit light and fun, and this issue is no exception. A weirdo named Carrion (whose amorous leanings toward his pet vulture have already been well-documented) is releasing addictive, sugary pork and beans and using the Spirit as a mascot!



Cooke's send-up of kid-targeted advertising is hilarious, but the real surprising thing about the issue (besides the aforementioned man/bird love) is the level of violence. While this book is lots of fun, it's definitely targeted toward adults:



But hey, I'm fine with that. It's just not really a kid's comic. Teenagers might like it though. Anyway, not much else to say (except to wonder what happened to the original cover), so I'll just end with "Darwyn Cooke is keeping the spirit of comics alive!" Sorry, that was lame. Anyway, I dig this comic and will definitely keep buying it.
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Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #12
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Juan Santacruz



This is another one that's gotten some play on comics blogs, and deservedly so. Jeff Parker has been spinning some incredibly fun stories in this series, using well-known characters and portraying them with actual personalities. Spider-Man is jokey and obnoxious, Wolverine has a short temper, Hulk always wants to smash stuff, Iron Man is always ready with the gadgets, and Captain America is always in control of the team. It's great fun. But that's not what everybody is so excited about here; the real draw is the wacky concept of Ego the Living Planet showing up to hit on Earth. His lines are hilarious, like he's trying to pick up a girl at a bar.



Iron Man, being a bit of a player himself, seems to relate:



Oh, Parker. You aim to please, don't you? Anyway, the heroes drive him off, of course, in a sufficiently humorous manner. On the way, we get scenes like this:



That's some funny stuff. It looks like I'm on board this comic as long as Parker is writing it. Well done, Jeff!
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Okay, it looks like that's it for this week. I thought about talking about Army@Love, but I didn't really have anything to say that I didn't already say about the first issue. Although I did love the bit where the hippy guy controlled an air strike by playing an awesome guitar solo. And it was interesting to have some of the background explained, including the idea of middle management personnel and advertising executives being conscripted to sell the war to the "extreme"/"Girls Gone Wild" generation. That's a stroke of genius on Rick Veitch's part, and I hope the government doesn't steal that idea. Huh, I guess I did have something to say about the issue. Whatever the case, I can't wait until the next issue.
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I expect to have more comics reviews up soon (that is, within the next couple of days); check out the "Currently reading" section of the sidebar for a hint of what they might be.