Looking forward

So, the new comics "solicitations" are out, detailing what is coming out in February. I think it's kind of weird the way the comics blog community obsesses over these every month, looking at what is coming out three months in the future rather than what is out now. It's interesting, the way things come out, get consumed, then are mostly forgotten. But I guess since this information is available, it's worth looking at and commenting on. This post will probably be a little longer than my posts about solicits usually will be, since I'll be commenting on series that I like or am interested in rather than just what I find interesting in the solicitations. Or something like that. Anyway, off we go:

Marvel:



This Daredevil cover cracks me up. Very funny. And they got John Romita Sr. to do it! Good for them! I don't read Daredevil, although I've heard Brubaker's run has been very enjoyable. Maybe sometime I'll check the collected version out from the library or something.



I'll be getting this Iron Man: Hypervelocity series. I usually don't care about Iron Man, but I did like the 6 issues Warren Ellis did recently, and I love Adam Warren. The Livewires series he did last year was great. I love the way he throws out a ton of crazy sci-fi ideas, and Iron Man seems like a good fit for him. I have no idea if this will tie into Marvel's Civil War continuity, and I don't really care. I just want to read a fun Adam Warren series.



So, the Stephen King Dark Tower comic is finally coming out. This has been hyped by Marvel for something like two years. It's not actually written by Stephen King; it's by Peter David, based on King's novels. I haven't really read much King, but I do like some of the movie adaptations of his books, like Carrie or The Shining. Also, several people have recommended the Dark Tower book series to me, so I'm curious about this. Plus the art is by Jae Lee, who is absolutely amazing (check out the illustrations he did for this Wired article). So, I'll consider it.



I haven't been reading the Ant-Man series, but I wanted to comment on Robert Kirkman. When he started getting big, I was following and enjoying his stuff, but somewhere along the line I soured on his writing. Someday I'll do a post on my disillusionment with Kirkman. People have said this series is enjoyable, but I haven't read it. Is it very different from his usual writing on stuff like Marvel Team Up, or is it his usual style?



Now Dr. Strange: The Oath is a series I've been enjoying so far. That Marcos Martin art is beautiful. I love what he does with colors (wait, is there a separate colorist? If so, I should give them some credit. He works very well with Martin). Bryan K. Vaughan is one of my current favorite writers, and I like what he's doing in this series so far. I also like Dr. Strange, but he doesn't seem to show up very much. He needs a good writer to make him interesting (like Peter Milligan in the recent X-Statix/Dead Girl miniseries), so it's probably better if he is in miniseries rather than an ongoing series.



I'm not sure about this Punisher War Journal series. I'm not a big fan of the Punisher, although I like Garth Ennis' take on him. I'm enjoying the stuff Matt Fraction is writing lately (Five Fists of Science was great, and Casanova is a highly enjoyable series), but I'm not sure if I will like this. I'm definitely not interested in the Civil War stuff that the book is spinning out of, so I'll have to wait and see what the buzz is before I read it. As for the cover above, I think it's hilarious. Villains attending Stilt-Man's funeral, with most of them wearing formal attire over their costumes - That's funny stuff!




Here's two more series I'm not sure about. I really like Warren Ellis, but I have little interest in the nostalgia factor that has brought about Newuniversal, this revival the New Universe. That said, the concept behind the book is interesting, and I think Ellis could do good things with it. Sounds like it could be his version of Rising Stars or Supreme Power (or the TV show Heroes, for that matter). I'll have to see when the first issue comes out if I want to get it. I also have little interest in Thunderbolts, but I think Ellis could write enjoyable stories about a team of supervillains working for the government. It's another one that I'll have to wait and read some reviews before I pick it up.



Ah Spider-Man loves Mary Jane. A great series. I think I picked up one of the earlier Mary Jane miniseries because I thought my wife would like it (I was right!), but I enjoyed it quite a bit also. And the new series has been great. Sean McKeever has scripted some very good characterizations, and it's fun to see Spider-Man pop up in the middle of the usual high school crises that teenagers deal with. The art by Takeshi Miyazawa is excellent, and I was sorry to hear that he's leaving the book soon. I hope they can find a suitable replacement. There was a fill in artist recently, and it was just not the same. Adrian Alphona or Skottie Young would probably be okay, although Young might be a bit too cartoony, and Alphona is probably moving on to a bigger project after his success on Runaways. Maybe one of those artists from the Marvel Adventures line could take over.



Speaking of the Marvel Adventures line, I thought this cover was hilarious. I don't know anything about Power Pack, but seeing a little girl possessed by Venom cracks me up.



Here's Wisdom, another book I'm not sure about. The art doesn't really grab me, I don't know the writer, and I don't really care about the character, but the concept sounds interesting, and this is a pretty good cover. I like the guy drinking a beer while staning over the body of a dragon that he just beat up with a cricket bat. So, does anybody recommend this book? Should I pick up the first issue that came out recently?




Here's some more books that I don't really care about and probably won't read, but I like the covers. That pile of ninjas jumping on...whoever that is...is pretty cool. I think Frank Quitely had a similar pin-up in an anniversary issue of Daredevil that came out a few years ago. And I like the Thing as king of the monsters, or whatever he's supposed to be on that other cover. I doubt I'll read the book though.



And finally, a book that I dig with a very cool-looking cover. Brubaker and Phillips did great things on Sleeper, and they seem to be following it up well with Criminal another really cool crime book. The first two issues were good, and I only expect it to get better. Don't let me down, boys! Okay, on to:

DC:



So, I did this rant over in the comments section of Comics Should Be Good, but I figured I could do another version of it here. I've been reading the current Grant Morrison run on Batman, but he's taking a break, and John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake are doing a four-issue fill-in. The last issue was the end of the first storyline of Morrison's run, and at the end of that issue there was a "next issue" box that showed the above cover, saying the next issue would feature the return of the Joker. But now this issue shows up in the February solicitations, so I don't know if the next issue will be a different story by Morrison or the beginning of the fill-in run. Very confusing. By the way, I've been enjoying Morrison's writing on Batman, but I really wish he had a different artist. Andy Kubert is really not very good. If this Van Fleet fellow who is doing the Joker issue is any good, maybe I'll write some letters to DC asking for him to replace Kubert. Yeah, like that will do any good.



The Spirit, by Darwyn Cooke! I'm pretty interested in this series. Cooke has done well with this retro type of story, in New Frontier and his issue of Solo. I'm looking forward to it, although not so much that I won't drop it if I don't like the first issue. I'm not sure if I'll get that Spirit/Batman special, since it's written by Jeph Loeb, who is not good. But I'm hoping the Spirit series will be good, especially with Cooke's writing and art.



Jeff Smith's Captain Marvel series is finally coming out! I don't really care about Captain Marvel, but I REALLY like Bone, so I'll definitely pick this one up. Man it's been like 3 years since this was announced. I'm glad to finally see it show up.



I liked the first issue of Superman: Confidential by Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale, so unless is somehow goes off the rails, I'll be buying the rest of the storyline. I think this is a Legends of the Dark Knight-style series, with rotating writers and artists. I doubt I'll get anything after the first arc, but that's fine.



I won't be buying this, but I like the cover by Adam Hughes. That guy can draw. He often goes a bit overboard with the cheesecake, but he is a very skilled artist, especially with facial expressions. I'm interested in his All-Star Wonder Woman, although I don't think I've ever bought a Wonder Woman comic in my life. I'll see about picking that up when it comes out (which might not be for quite a while). And that's about it for the regular DC superhero books that I read. Huh. The rest is all Wildstorm and Vertigo stuff:



I read 100 Bullets in trades (Nyah hah hah, I'm killing the industry!), and I love it. Some of the best writing in comics, with absolutely amazing art by Eduardo Risso. Since I don't read it monthly, I probably won't make a habit of pointing it out, but I should say that Dave Johnson's covers are consistently excellent.



Fables is another book that I read in trade format, and it's also very well written and drawn. Regular artist Mark Buckingham is great, and there are usually some very good fill-in artists. And of course, you can't mention Fables without pointing out the beautiful (hell, that's an understatement) cover art by James Jean. I think this cover is especially incredible. So, I might not mention Fables every month, but I'll probably point out the covers just because of the amazing artwork.



However, I do read Jack of Fables monthly, and it's been very good so far. I like the character of Jack, and the first storyline has been very interesting. I'm really looking forward to seeing where it goes. And I gotta point out more great cover art from James Jean.



Y: The Last Man is another Vertigo book that I read monthly. It's pretty good in trade format, but I don't have any problem keeping up with the storylines month by month. I mentioned above that I like Bryan K. Vaughan, and this is probably the book that made him a superstar. It's very well written (I love Vaughan's dialogue), and it's coming close to finishing. I think #60 is going to be the last issue. This looks like one of the single-issue stories that the series excels in, and that cover is great.



I enjoy Testament quite a bit. Sometimes I wonder if I should be reading it in trade format, but I do usually like it each month. The stories can be confusing, but writer Douglas Rushkoff is nothing if not ambitious. He's really trying to weave a complex, multilayered story of fascistic government control that ties in with Biblical mythology. It gets kind of hard to follow sometimes, but the art is very good, with some imaginative panel layouts, and it's really like nothing else out there.



DMZ is another Vertigo book that I follow monthly and really like. Brian Wood is starting to get pretty popular, and if this book is any indication, he'll soon be another superstar creator. It's an excellent series, and I'm in for the long haul.



The Other Side has been great for the first two issues. I didn't realize it was a miniseries, but it does make sense to keep it as a short story; it might be hard to continue as a longer series. The two issues that have come out so far have been very good, and I can't wait for the rest of the series.



I bought the first 6 or 7 issues of Loveless because I like Brian Azzarello. It was very hard to follow from month to month, so I dropped it. I picked up a couple more issues in a sale, but I don't think it's one I can read monthly. Maybe that's a problem with Azzarello, since I imagine 100 Bullets would also be difficult to follow monthly. I do like the characters and the art (although regular artist Marcelo Frusin is a better fit for the series than frequent fill-in artist Daniel Zezelj), but the story was just too hard to keep up with in monthly installments. I might have to get the next few issues to fill out the current storyline, then start picking it up in trades after that. By the way, this cover is awesome.




Here's two new Vertigo series that I'm interested in, but not sure I'll get. Scalped seems like an interesting concept, and it's written by the writer of The Other Side. Crossing Midnight (also an interesting concept) is written by Mark Carey; I've read some of his stuff but not enough to know whether I really like him or not. Neither book has an artist that I really know. I'll probably buy the first issues of both and decide whether I want to follow them after that. Oh, and Crossing Midnight has covers by the extremely talented J.H. Williams III, so it has that in its favor.



Ex Machina is probably my favorite comic book right now. Each issue amazes me with its writing and art, and I'll definitely pick up this "behind the scenes" special. I'll have to do a writeup on it sometime. I wonder if that's what the cover will actually look like, or if it will be colored.



Desolation Jones is another series that I've enjoyed immensely. The current artist, Daniel Zezelj, is no J.H. Williams III (the previous artist on the book), but he seems to fit the style, and Warren Ellis seems to be writing more for his style in this arc. I wonder if the book is going to go in six-issue arcs, with a different artist for each. That would be cool.



I've been enjoying The Boys for the most part, but I'll be happy when the introductory storyline is out of the way and the series starts picking up steam. I do like Garth Ennis a lot, and Darick Robertson's art fits the book well. I think this could get very enjoyable, but it's still in the early stages. I know a lot of people have been turned off by Ennis' juvenile sex scenes, but if you realize that's what's going to happen going into the story, you can look at it as one of those silly, over-the-top Ennis stories like The Rifle Brigade. And there is the potential to really satirize superheroes, if Ennis feels like it. Or he might just tell a lot of goofy stories with crazy sex and nasty, humorous violence. We'll see what happens.



Speaking of goofy Garth Ennis violence, I really dug the first issue of The Midnighter. The big action scene had me grinning in a silly way (sillily?), and the cliffhanger was hilarious. Who knows what Ennis has planned, but if this cover is any indication, it will be funny. Plus really good art by Chris Sprouse.




And then we have the Wildstorm series that I'm not sure about. Tranquility seems like a fun concept (a superhero retirement home), and Gail Simone is a good writer, although I don't actually read any of her books. I'll probably get the first issue and decide from there. I'm not sure about this God Save the Queen graphic novel. I've expressed my reservations about writer Mike Carey above, but John Bolton really wowed me with his artwork in the recent Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall graphic novel. It's probably one that I'll have to read some reviews of before I make a decision.

Dark Horse:



As I said above, I really like Adam Warren, so I might get this manga-style graphic novel that he's doing. It's called Empowered. It's about the only thing from Dark Horse that I'm interesed in in February. I guess there's no new issue of The Goon that month.

As for Image, their solicitations aren't out yet, so I'll probably go over them when they come out.

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Well, that wraps up my look at these things. If I do this again, I'm sure it will be much shorter. Oh, and I wanted to give some props to Dorian Wright for pointing out the nudity on the cover of The Atom. If anybody can spot a penis, it's him!

Accursed Richards!

A selection of panels from Fantastic Four #17.
If the words are too small to read, click on the picture to see a larger version. Sorry.



Reed's a hardass, but he wears sweet headgear. And that's one hell of a sensitive "radar set" he's got.



Snazzy outfits, boys. I'm not sure what "cafe society" is, but it makes for a good line. As you might be able to tell, I love the Thing's dialogue. Stan Lee really wrote great lines for him, as you'll see later.





"Cheaters"! I love that "hep" 60's dialogue. And Ben DOES have a lovable personality. But that innocent-seeming janitor/sea captain was actually...



Doctor Doom! Wow, posing as a member of common public isn't usually his modus operandi, is it? And apparently he's been reading the Cronin Theory of Comics.



Doctor Doom apparently has an LSD ray. One that will project an angry-faced Big Ben into New York.



Khrushchev calls his henchmen numbskulls.



JFK's hair gives orders.



Another great line from Ben! Anyway, Doctor Doom's plot with the idento-discs was to have inflatable balloon-robots follow the team around and annoy them. Seems silly, but he also had them do this:



That's cool. I should get a poster like that.



Reed's most low-tech invention ever.



Now that's awesome. Somebody should put Kirby panels like this in 3-D, like in Destroy!.



Reed makes up for his goofy tinfoil invention with an awesome magnet-plane.



[Insert your own gay joke here]



Man, Mister Fantastic is the smartest man on earth, AND one of the world's greatest judo experts? Bastard.



And a final kickass line from the Thing. Early Fantastic Four is awesome. I may sound like I think it's stupid, but I kid because I love.

Hidden in plain sight

Cache (Hidden), directed by Michael Haneke (France, 2005).


I watched this movie the other night, and it really got me thinking. It's an interesting thriller about a semi-famous French TV personality whose family is sort-of stalked by somebody who seems to have a vendetta against him. Somebody starts leaving videotapes on their doorstep, and the tapes are just hours of video of the front of their house. There's nothing significant that happens on the tapes; they seem to simply be a message that they are being watched. Some of the tapes come wrapped in paper with what look like a child's drawings of a person with blood coming out of his mouth. Then the members of the family (Georges (Daniel Auteuil), Anne (Juliette Binoche), and their teenage son, Pierrot) start getting postcards with similar drawings at work or school. It all seems really worrying, but when they go to the police, they are told nothing can be done unless the "stalker" turns violent or threatening. Then different tapes start showing up that seem to point to a connection to Georges' childhood. Long-held secrets are revealed, and the marriage and family relationship is tested. In the end, we're not sure exactly what happened or who the culprit was. It's definitely a movie that could stand future viewings.

The style of the film is amazing. The viewer is really put in the role of the voyeur. All during the film, we're not sure if we are watching the goings-on of the family, or one of the tapes. There are long scenes of the exteriors of buildings that sometimes turn out to be the tapes, but other times turn out to be characters entering or exiting. It's very offputting. I've read some reviews that compare the style to David Lynch's films, and it seems appropriate (if a bit less weird and surreal).

There's one aspect of the plot that I wanted to discuss, but it requires *SPOILERS* (ah, the blog's first spoiler warning. How annoying.) from here on out. The childhood incident that seems to influence the stalker seems very significant. It turns out that Georges' parents tried to adopt an Algerian boy named Majid after his parents (Majid's father worked for Georges' father) were killed in a protest. The tapes lead Georges to meet up with Majid, and he thinks Majid is behind them and it is meant to be some sort of blackmail, although Majid denies any knowledge of them. Later, it seems that Majid's son is perpetrating the scam, although he also denies it later in the film. After interrogation from his wife, Georges admits that his parents tried to adopt Majid, but Georges (who was six years old at the time) was jealous and told lies, claiming that Majid was coughing up blood, which led them to have Majid taken away to a hospital, and presumably an orphanage. Anyway, one Amazon review I read said this is a commentary on Algerian/French relations, but it seemed to me to be a metaphor of sorts for the West's relations with the Middle East. After causing problems in the region, the West tries to make good. It doesn't work out due to internal conflicts about what should be done or if we should be doing anything, and the Middle East ends up worse off than before the West meddled. Later generations in the Middle East hold a grudge, believing that the West cheated their parents out of "the good life", and begin to terrorize the later generations of the West. I don't know if this is just me projecting my feelings about global politics onto this film, but it was what I was thinking about when I watched it. The ambiguity at the end of the film could even support the idea that nobody really knows who is to blame for current problems. The stalker/terrorists could be somebody else who is using the past as an excuse to cause problems. I don't know. But like I said, it really made me think.

To summarize, it's a good movie, and I would recommend it. It's very French though, so I'm sure some would find it slow moving and boring. You might not get any symbolism out of it like I did, but even without that baggage, it's an interesting thriller that will have you thinking about it for a while to come.

In which much destruction occurs

Here we go, my first real post!
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So here's a comic I just read:



Destroy! #1 by Scott McCloud (Eclipse Comics, 1987).

I'd read about this comic before, probably in McCloud's Understanding Comics or Reinventing Comics, but I had never read it, so when I saw it on Ebay I snapped it up. It is pretty crazy. A full-fledged rampage of mayhem through Manhattan. In 3-D! That's right, it comes with 3-D glasses and everything. Hopefully you'll be able to see any of these images that I post. If you bought Superman Confidential #1 from a couple weeks ago, you can use those annoying 3-D glasses that came with the Heroscape ad.

Anyway, I think at the time McCloud had heard complaints that comics were too violent, so he decided to prove the critics right and make the most mindless, destructive, violent comic he could. I believe Alan Moore said later that he started the 90's a few years early. However, this wasn't the 90's yet, so it's not quite as dark and nihilistic as some of those comics would get. I dunno, maybe there were some really nasty comics back then, but this doesn't seem to compare to the likes of Darkchylde or Purgatori. Of course, the violence in this is not sexualized (not even a ripped costume on the male combatants); it's merely destructive (I'm going to have to hit a thesaurus and find some synonyms for destroy if this goes on for long). And, I think McCloud was going for a strange dichotomy between the innocence (or is it just two-dimensionality?) of the characters in most superhero comics and the violent, destructive fights they have.

So, to synopsize, the comic is pretty much just a fight scene between two superheroes, the Red Basher (that's him on the cover), and Captain Maximum. The Basher has apparently gone nuts, and is charging around New York, smashing everything in his path, and screaming "DESTROY!!" over and over. We learn later that he might be crazy about being rejected by Captain Maximum's girlfriend, Babs, but the text never really says. Soon enough, Maximum shows up and tries to calm him down, but Basher just punches him, which leads to the two of them pounding each other throughout Manhattan, past (and often through) many famous landmarks. For instance, here's a shot of the Basher bouncing off the Empire State Building:


(By the way, you can click on these images to see a larger version that probably looks better in 3-D)

Later, the Basher is punched near the Chrysler building (which McCloud appears to be a fan of), and he grabs onto it:



Then he uses it as a baseball bat:



This sends Captain Maximum flying out into the harbor, and here's his comeback:



So, as you can see, some people might be uncomfortable reading this. I think somebody would pause before making this comic today, but I'm sure at the time nobody imagined the tragedy that would later happen in New York. Even so, it's a little disturbing seeing all the mayhem and thinking about how many people would really die in an event like this. And here's the kicker:



That's what happens after the Basher hits Captain Maximum so hard he flies all the way to the moon, then Max jumps back to earth and lands a reentry-speed punch on him. That's right, complete destruction of the city. Pretty much. Of course, everyone gets up, the Basher regains his senses and agrees to be taken in, and the police chief says, "Well, at least nobody was hurt!" So I guess this exists in that Incredible Hulk realm of comic fight, where the authorities managed to evacuate the city and nobody was injured. Pretty silly, but really quite enjoyable to read.

I have to mention the art, which is a good Kirby-style level of superhero violence and destruction. And the 3-D really adds to the experience, for the most part. Some of the effects just make the pictures look weird, like people's faces are floating in front of their heads. I wonder if 3-D technology has improved at all in the last 20 years, and if they could make it look better today with computers. But much of the destruction looks amazing, like the rubble is flying right off the page. There's one two-page spread (at the center of the comic) of four panels with the two "heroes" pummeling each other that I really liked. There were rocks and stuff flying all over the place, and one of the rocks looked like it was floating over the staple in the spine. That made me laugh.

Another thing that struck me was the specificity of the geography. The police who are watching often narrate the action to each other over the radio, saying things like, "Holy Toledo, Chief! The Red Basher just punched Captain Maximum ten blocks north, right through City Hall! Now he's coming out over Washington Square! I'll be damned! Still going! Just took out some trees and -- wait...I lost sight of him...no! Here he is! Just piled through the Flatiron Building at 23rd and -- Wow! That's another eighteen blocks!" McCloud even includes a map of Manhattan on the inside back cover, showing the path of destruction and commenting on which comics company headquarters would be destroyed. Weird.

So, I would recommend getting it if you like ridiculous destruction that pretends nobody actually got hurt, Jack Kirby-style superhero brawls, 3-D comics, or Scott McCloud.

Second try...

So, I'm trying the blogging thing again. Let's see if I do more than one or two posts this time. I do plan to post my thoughts about comics, movies, books, TV, etc. I'll have to see if I can keep it up regularly. We'll see!